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-^«^ . . -*-^ .... 






AS TO ROGER WILLIAMS. 



'Banishment' from the Massachusetts Plantation; 



WITH A FEW FURTHER WORDS 



CONCEKNINC 



THE BAPTISTS, THE QUAKERS, AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: 

§k Ponograph, 



BY 

V 

HENRY MARTYN DEXTER, D.D., 

Member of tJu Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, and the New England 

H istoric-Gcnealogical Society; Correspojtding Member of tlu Long Island Historical Society; 

Editor of TnvL Congregationaust; Author of ^^Congregationalism : IVhence it is, 

IV/iat it is," etc.; " The Church Polity of the Pilgrims, the Polity of the 

New Testament;" '^Pilgrim Memorauda^^- etc.; and Editor 

of WiggifCs A nnotated Exact Reprint of^^Mourt^s 

Reltition" ^'■ChurclCs Philip''s IVar, and 

Eastern Expeditions" etc. 



n^Tu^oy fth' ffptj^ UxovGov Si, 



BOSTON : 

CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY, 

1876. 



• U373 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S76, 

By H. M. Dexter, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington 



ELECTROTYPED BY 

THOMAS TODD, 

CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE, 

BOSTON. 



FRANKLIN PRESS : 

RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 

117 FRANKLIN STREET, 

BOSTON. 



TO THE 



HONORABLE ROBERT C. WINTHR01\ LL.D., 

President of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 



My Dear Sir: 

For a contemporary record of the greater portion of the events which 

illustrate the relation of Roger Williams to the Massachusetts men, posterity is 

indebted to the diligent and candid pen of your noble and illustrious ancestor, 

"y Governour." This circumstance suggested the desire — which the sense of 

your eminent worthiness of such a lineage, and a large experience, these many 

years, of your marked personal kindness, have confirmed — to be permitted thus 

to associate your Name with this endeavor to thraiv additional light upon the 

life and character of the renowned, but unpretending. Founders of the Colony 

of the Bay. 

I have the honor to be. 

With great and grateful regard, 

Faithfully yours, 

HEN^RY M. DEXTER. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



A FEW excellent — if not erudite — people last winter petitioned 
our General Court to revoke " the sentence of banishment against 
Roger Williams," which was decreed in 1635. They urged such action, 
in the interest of "historical justice," on the ground that that decree was 
in the nature of punishment for the " offence " of his advocacy of " per- 
fect religious liberty." 

I have sought to take advantage of any possible public interest grow- 
ing out of this remarkable procedure, to invite the intelligent, thinking 
and candid portion of the community, to re-examine the whole subject 
of the relation of the Massachusetts people of the seventeenth century 
to the case of the distinguished person whose memory this petition 
aimed to vindicate ; and, later, to the case of the Baptists and Quakers, 
as well. I have been the more anxious to do this, because the limited 
acquaintance of some of our earliest historians with the facts — to say 
nothing of any misconceptions, or prejudices, which made it easier for 
them to see things in one light than in another — has introduced much 
erroneous conception, and consequent honest misrepresentation, to the 
pages of many modern histories having wide circulation, and giving 
tone to the public mind, but which have been written by scholars quite 
too content to take such writers as Hubbard, Backus and Bentley for 
their warrant, without the pains to go behind them to those underlying 
registers, treatises and documents, which are, in reality, the only "orig- 
inal" authorities. 

The task — a very humble, if an arduous one — which I set for 
myself, was to go carefully through all accessible records, books and 
papers, which from their date, intent, or authorship, offer any coeval 



[vi] 

contribution of fact to the illustration of the subject in hand ; and then 
■collate and arrange the results. I cannot aver that my research has 
been exhaustive ; only that I have sought to make it such. I cannot 
claim that I have succeeded perfectly, and without any coloring from 
prejudgment, in classifying and harmonizing the fruits of that research ; 
only that I have conscientiously endeavored to do so. I cannot hope 
that, as the result of the new view which, in this contemporaneous light, 
is put upon many passages in the history, the world will be convicted of 
a great wrong hitherto largely done to the memory of the Puritans of 
Massachusetts ; but I must be allowed to think that any historian who 
shall go on to reproduce the former slanders in the face of the demon- 
stration of their true character herein offered, must — unless he refute 
it — fairly be condemned as paying better fealty to indolence, or preju- 
dice, than to the truth. 

For greater clearness, all dates of importance — as will be seen — 
have been given in both Old Style and New. 

I have only to add that, as I have intended to make no statement, 
however comparatively unimportant, which does not rest upon valid evi- 
dence, and as I have desired in all cases to guide others to the sources 
of knowledge which I have found for myself ; I have no apology to 
make for the notes with which, otherwise, so small a treatise might 

seem to be overburdened. 

H. M. D. 

Greystones, New Bedford, /j Jan. i8j6. 



THE general subject of the character of Roger Williams, and of his relation 
to the early colonists of New England, has been called up to public atten- 
tion afresh by a petition from sundry residents in the town of Sturbridge, Mass., 
addressed to the Massachusetts Legislature of 1874-5, asking them to revoke 
the order of banishment before which, in the winter of 1635-6, he retreated into 
what is now known as Rhode Island. It is not iinportant here to refer to the 
various inaccuracies of statement found in that petition itself, or to discuss 
either the legal question how far the General Court of the Commonwealth, in 
these years of Grace, has power to annul action taken by the Court of the Col- 
ony two hundred and forty years ago ; or the moral question, how much such 
action, if taken, could do in the way of securing any needed "justice" toward 
the remarkable man to whom reference is made, or to his memory. It does 
seem to be suitable, however, to avail of the occasion for making a clear, 
authentic and complete statement of the facts, as they actually occurred ; to 
the end that slanders oft-repeated may be seen in their true character, and 
"justice" be done to a// the noble memories involved. 

It is astonishing how much the inherent difficulty of thoroughly comprehend- 
ing a man who lived two or three hundred years ago is increased, if lie were a 
somewhat pivotal and distinguished person ; and, more especially, if lie have 
been subsequently taken up and glorified, as their pet hero, by any large and 
enthusiastic body of believers. This seems to be particularly true of Roger 
Williams. The materials for his exact histor}' are exceptionally abundant. Of 
few who shared with him the labors, and excitements, and controversies, of 
the first half-century of New England, will the close student discover so many 
and so amply revealing testimonies; from his own hand in letters and treatises, 
and from the hands of friends and enemies in letters, records, and anti-treatises. 
He, of all men, ought, by this time, to be as accurately as widely known. But 
the denomination of Christians known as Baptists, having canonized him — ' 
althougli never such a Baptist as they are, and for but a very short period of 
time a Baptist at all — have manifested great reluctance to give due considera- 
tion to a large portion of the evidence bearing upon the case ; and seem to 
prefer, without regard to facts making fatally against their position, to re-utter 
the old encomiums and denunciations ; as if an inadequate statement could, 
by persistent reiteration, be made a whole truth. 



[2] 



It has thus become a common representation of the case, that it was the 
Church-and-State controversy, and Mr. WiUiams's superior liberaHty on that 
subject, which led to his banishment ; and it has even gone so far that leading 
journals^ of that denomination scout the very idea of any other view, as some- 
thing which to all the rest of the world but Massachusetts is special pleading, 
that is, on the face of it, absurd. 

There is a very simple, albeit a laborious, way to settle this question. It is 
the only way in which it ever can be settled. It is to go straight to the original 
sources, and candidly, and in detail, to examine them, and make up a judg- 
ment upon them ; without regard to the rhetoric of superficial biographers, or 
prejudiced historians, or the misapprehensions of a later public sentiment by 
them misled. This it is proposed now to attempt. 

As is true of so many of those best known in connection with the settlement 
of New England, it is extremely difficult,' if not impossible, to fix with absolute 
certaint)' the date, and place, of the birth of Roger Williams. All that can be 
positively />rovi:d concerning his early life is that, when a youth, he attracted 
the favorable attention of Sir Edward Coke, and, on his influence, was elected 
a scholar of Sutton's Hospital (now the Charter House) 25 June-5 July, 1621 ;^ 
that he obtained an exhibition there^9-T9 July, 1624;^ and that he was matric- 
ulated a pensioner of Pembroke College, Cambridge, 7-17 July, 1625, and 
took the degree of Bachelor of Arts there in January, 1626-7.* It is probable 



' The Examiner and Chronicle of 7 April, 1S75, bland- 
ly reaffirms, without so much as an apology for the want 
of proof, the old notion that it was this controversy which 
led to the harsh action of the colony ; with amusing con- 
ceit intimating that it is sui>erfluous to thrcsli again the 
straw of this old controversy, because "all the world 
outside of Massachusetts [which happens to have in her 
archives the best material in the world for judgment; 
some of it in the shape of 'straw' that never yet was 
* tlireshed '3 has long since made up its verdict." And 
the W^atcJntian and Rejleciar of 15 April — replying 
to an article in the Christian Register — says again: 
*Mhe main ground of the action against Williams was 
his doctrine of soul-liberty." It goes on: "Toleration 
was [by the Massachusetts men] decreed as a fountain- 
head of heresy, even as original sin was the primal source 
of all sins. . , He proclaimed truth against the 
[this] mighty error of our fathers. That his views, if he 
had been let alone, would have wrecked the colony, is 
absurd. They would have saved it from a long dark 
night in its history, and made it the brightest spot on 
earth." It surely cannot be an error to assume that, so 
far as it takes representation in the columns of two of its 



principal journals, the historical scholarship of the Bap- 
tist denomination no%v stands pledged to this proposition: 
that Roger Williams was banished by the jMassaclmsetts 
Colony specifically for asserting the doctrine of "soul- 
liberty," and for advocating universal toleration in re- 
ligion. 

2 Sadleir MSS. in the Library of Trinity College, 
Cambridge. 

^Records of Clmrter House. Elton's Life of Roger 
Wiiiiams, 10, 100. 

* Arnold, in his, for the most part, excellent /^w-/£?ry^ 
Rliodc Island, [i : 47-50] discusses this subject with care 
and candor. He gives full weight to Prof. Elton's ex- 
amination of the matter, and to all the evidence adduced 
by him in proof that Rodericks Williams, who entered 
at Jesus College, Oxford, from Conwyl Cayo in Wales, 
was our Roger ; but is compelled — by various consider- 
ations—to decide that the weight of probability strongly 
favors the conclusion that Rogerus Williams, whose 
name appears upon the "subscription book " of Pem- 
broke College, Cambridge, under date of 1626, was the 
man. There would seem to be no reasonable doubt that 
he is right 



[3] 



that he was a native of Wales ;^ that he was born between 1599 and 1603;*' 
that he had the inestimable advantage of pious parentage ;" and that he was 
beneficed in Lincolnshire/ or its neighborhood, before coming to New England, 
and became a Nonconformist there. There is a story, which seems to rest purely 
upon tradition, that he studied law for a time after leaving the university.^ 

As to the steps along which the mind of Mr. Williams was led in his pro- 
gress through Nonconformity to the principles of rigid Separation, we are not 
informed ; but there is evidence of a severe mental struggle on his part.^** When 
fully persuaded in his own mind, he embarked from Bristol witli his wife Mary 
in the sliip Lyon, Captain Pierce master, i-ii Dec. 1630, and after a tedious 
and tempestuous voyage of sixty-six days, arrived off Nantasket 5-15 February 
following. Winthrop notes his arrival as that of "a godly minister." ^^ 

Two facts may wisely be remembered at this point, before entering upon the 
minute details of the transactions of the next five years. In the fi_rst place, 
Roger Williams was still very young. According to Prof. Elton, he would be 
scarcely more than twenty-five ; by the chronology which seems more prob- 
able, he would not be over thirty-one, if more than twenty-eight. In the second 



*• All traditions agree as to this, and the family name 
there abounds. 

*'Denedict [ffisiory cf t/ur Baptists, i: 473,] quotes 
the records of the Tirst Daptist Church in Providence as 
fixing his birth in 159S. But of course this is not a co- 
temporary record, and K.no\\\c5[Mcfnoiro/ Ro^er Jl^ii- 
liants, 23] thinks 1599 the true year; as also do Cam- 
mcll {Life 0/ Roger lyUUamsy 6] and Guild \Pub. 
Narragansett Clubf i: 5]. Prof. Elton \Li/c 0/ Roger 
lyaiiams, S, 9,] cites an entry of the admission of 
'*V?tf(itwj<f Williams, fiHusGulicImi W. de Conwclgaio, 
Plcb. an. nat. iS," at Jesus College, Oxford, 30 April, 
1624. in proof that Roger Williams was born in 1606 at 
Conwyl Cayo, in Carmarthen, Soutii Wales. But that 
would be Roderic and not Roger ; while Arnold seems 
to have proved that Roger studied at Cambridge and not 
Oxford— leading to the conclusion that Prof. Elton's 
"Rodcricus'* must have been another man. Williams 
himself has made three contributions toward the settle- 
ment of this date- In a document of 21 July, 1679, 
lBackus*s Hist. N. E.'w 421] he speaks of himself as 
" being now near to four-score years of age ; " in his ad- 
dress to the people called Quakers \Geo. J'ox Digged out 
of His Burro7Vis^ etc. vi :] dated 10 Mar. 1672-3, he aaya, 
"from my childhood, now above three-score years;" 
and in a letter lo Jno. Winthrop, about 1632, [4 Mass. 
Hist. Coll. vi: 1S5,] he speaks of himself as "necrcr 
vpwards of 30 then 25." The first would well suit cither 
1598 or 1599: the second might fit those years, but 
would better accord with a later birtlwlate; while the 



third, if construed literally (as not meaning that he was 
over 30, but was nearer that than 25) would make him 
then about 28 ; which would fix his birth not far from 
1603. 

' Geo. Fox Diggedy etc., vi. 

8 Hubbard \Gen. Hist. Ne^v-England^ 206] says **in 
Essex, where he lived." But Williams himself incident- 
ally alludes [Bioudy Tetunt yet more Bloudy, etc. 12,] 
to a ride with Cotton and Hooker, " to, and from, Scra- 
pringham." Cotton was at Boston, and Boston and 
Sempringham arc in Lincolnshire. 

^ Betudiciy'w 474. 

" " Truly it was as bitter as death to me when Bishop 
Laud pursued me out of this land, and my conscience 
was persuaded against the national church, and ceremo- 
nies, and bishops, beyond the conscience of your dear 
father [Sir Edward Coke.] I say it was as bitter as death 
to me, when I rode Windsor way, to take ship at Bristow 
[nristol] and saw Stoke House [Stoke Pogis^ Bucking- 
liamshire\ where the blessed man was ; and I then durst 
not acquaint him with my conscience, and my flight." 
[Letter to Afrs. Sndfeir. SadUir MSS. EUoh^ 89.] 
"He [God] knows what gains and preferments I ha\'e 
refused in universities, city, country, and court, in Old 
England, and something in New England, &c., to keep 
my soul undcfiled in this point, and not to act with a 
doubting conscience, etc" [Letter to Rev. yohn Cot' 
toUy Jr.y 25 Marcli, \(^i. Proceedings Aftus. Hist. 
Soc. March, 1S5S, 316.] 

" Winlhrop's yournai^ i: 41. 



[4] 



place, while never the most sedate, deliberate and conservative of men, he was 
now also — if we are to take the most kindly-phrased testimony of good and 
candid men who knew him at the time, and had much general regard for 
him; men like Elder William Brewster,-"- and Governor Bradford'" — hasty to 
rashness, much given to extreme opinions, and very unsettled in the same. 

John Wilson, pastor of the Boston church, was now on the point of revisiting 
England for some domestic reasons — in fact, sailed in the Lyon on her return 
voyage — and there is evidence that the church invited Mr. Williams to supply 
his place during this absence ; and that he refused, on the ground of conscience, 
because they were "an unseparated people."" As Wilson left in less than sixty 
days after Williams landed, and as it is stated that when he did go he " com- 
mended them to the exercise of prophecy in his absence, and designated those 
whom he thought most fit for it, viz. : the Governor (Winthrop), Mr. Dudley, 
and Mr. Nowell the elder ;"'^ it follows that the invitation given to Mr. Wil- 
liams, with the reply made by him, must have taken place almost immediately 
after his arrival. It would seem to follow very naturally, also, that such a curt, 
off-hand, condemnation of this important church, and of the ablest and best 
men of the colony who were members of it, as he appears to have connected 
with his refusal, could hardly have failed to excite a feeling of prejudice against 
its utterer, mingled with solicitude lest the infant settlement might be in 
danger of trouble from him ; nor would this feeling take much abatement from 
the consideration that it was a stripling stranger of scarcely a score and a half 
of years, who was thus assuming to sit in judgment upon his elders.'" 

This may well prepare us for the next intimation, on the 12-22 April follow- 
ing, to the effect that the Court, hearing that the church at Salem had invited 
Mr. Williams to be their teacher, caused a letter to be written to Mr. Endccott 
to say that they hoped the Salem people would act cautiously, and not proceed 
in this matter without due advisement; inasmuch as Mr. Williams had refused 
to fellowship the Boston church because it was not ready to proceed to the 
extreme of separation ; and because he had broached novel opinions, " that the 
magistrate might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor any other offence, 



^-Morton's Ne-ji~Englattds Meinorially (first edi- 
tion), 7S. 

*^ Cfadford' s History of PU;noth Pitintatioit, 3 10. 

^^ This rests wliolly upon Mr. Williams's own testi- 
mony, no reference being made to it, so far as is known, 
in any record, by any other writer. In liis letter to 
John Cotton, Jr., already cited, in 167 1, he says: "being 
imanimously chosen teacher at Boston (before your dear 
father came, divers years) I conscientiously refused, and 
withdrew to Plymouth, because I durst not officiate to 



an unseparated people, as, upon examination and con- 
ference, I found them to be." [Proceedings, etc, 316.] 
The only time when all this could have been true would 
seem to have been during the month immediately fol- 
lowing his arrival in the country. Probably there was no 
formal call, and so no record. 

^•' Winthrop's yournal, i; 50. 

w Wilson must then have been about 43 ; Winthrop, 
44; Pynchon, 42; Endecott, 41 ; Dudley, 55, and Elder 
Nowell perhaps something older tlian either. 



[5] 

as it was a breach of the first table."- The biographers of Mr. Williams have 
stigmatized the Court for this hUerference, and one most respectable writer 
^ has branded it as "persecution," as contrasted with "calm expostulation"'^ 
Calm expostulation, however, is precisely what it appears to have been It 
has been assumed that here was a formal edict of tlie supreme tribunal, havin-^ 
all the force of law, interposing to come between the church of Salem and 
their chosen teacher. The fact seems to be, however, tl^at there was no formal 
action whatever by the Governor and Council; certainly no evidence of any 
appears on the records. Our only knowledge of the circumstance is due to a 
minute m the private journal of the Governor ; who speaks of it, not as a thin^r 
officially done, but in such a manner as would quite accord with an unofficial 
and cxpostulatory "letter written to Mr. Endccott," by the six gentlemen 
present, (Winthrop, Dudley, Ludlow, Nowell, Pynchon and Bradstreet,) in the 
friendly aim to forewarn their Salem friends against possible danger from some 
peculiarities of their proposed teacher, with which they might not have become 
as yet fully acquainted. 

It is not absolutely certain whether the Salem church ordained Mr. Williams 
at this t.me,^or not Knowles," Gammell- and Elton,- apparently relying upon 



Dr. Bentley,-say that he was settled over them on the 12-32 April — the very 
day on which the letter above-named was written. On the other hand Hub- 
bard -who wrote within fifty years of the event, and had important facilities 
tor getting at the facts which arc not now at hand— says that the church "for 
the present, forbore proceeding with him=^"; while Mr. Felt, whose patient 
accuracy ,s seldom at fault in such matters, says the "interference prevented 
die ordination of Mr. Williams, and he went to labor at Plymouth "-> It is cer- 
tain that he was in Plymouth in 1631, probably before the autumn,^^ where he 
taught as an assistant to the Rev. Ralph Smith. Here Winthrop and Wilson 



C<7//. vi : 2j6 1 '"I- "ciicr 10 lindccolt: (he communicilion suspends 



^^Jifemoir, ,19. 

"' Li/c, 15. 

'^ Dcscri/uim, tic, nf,. 

'^ General History 0/ .'•fc-M-England. [j Mass. Uiil. 
Call. v. 203.] Gov. Hulchinson, who .icknowlcdjcs Iiis 
special indcblcdncsi to Hubb.ird's MSS.. Lul who h.id 
m.nny olhcr oriKinal sources of knowledge, says: "The 
Governor and Council interposed with their advice, and 
prevented his settlement at that time." [ffisl. Afa,, 
i: <o.] 



the ordination of Williams." P,.iylic3 [J/l-wo/r „/ 
P!ymmt/i Colmy, i: j66] represents Williams as leav- 
ing Salem in consequence of dilTcring with Skelton j but 
gives no authority for the statement. 

"Gammell [Li/e, jij says, "probably in the month of 
August. i6ii." Bcntley [246] says, "before the close 
of summer." Hubbard (I'JiI s.iys Williams returned to 
Salem just before Skcllon died, in August, if,n, while 
Morton [Xcw-Eng. Mem. 7S) says he had "lived about 
three years at Plimoulh." which, if llubbard were right, 
would render necessary the inference that Williams had 



^A„„a/,„r <:„/. ■■ ^ , .. „ (!™« 'o Plymouth about the time named by Mr. Gam- 

An'"^ "/ Salem, n: ifx,-Ke3iiOhn EccUsiaiti. \ mcU. 



[6] 



found him on their visit to tlie Pilgrim Colony in the latter part of October 
of the next year. And it will give us some hint of the manner of those times 
if we pause long enough to glance at the Massachusetts Governor's account of 
their public worship.'" 

On the Lord's Day there was a sacrament, which they did partake in ; and, in the afternoon, 
Mr. Roger Williams (according to their custom) propounded a question, to which the pastor, 
Mr. Smith, spake briefly; then Mr. Williams prophesied; and after the governour of Plymouth 
[Bradford] spake to the question ; after him the elder [Brewster] ; then some two or three 
more of the congregation. Then the elder desired the governour of Massachusetts and Mr. 
Wilson to speak to it, which they did. When this was ended, the deacon, Mr. Fuller, put the 
congregation in mind of their duty of contribution ; whereupon the governour and all the rest 
went down to the deacon's seat, and put into the bo.x, and then returned. 

A little incident seems to have occurred in connection with this visit (whether 
it had to do with the question propounded above, or not, is not certain) which 
will well illustrate on what painfully petty matters Mr. Williams's conscience 
was at this time laboring. Cotton Mather relates it, thus:"" 

There were at this time in Plymouth two Ministers [Smith and Williams], leavened so far 
with the Humours of the Rigid Separation, that they insisted vehemently upon the Unlawfulness 
of calling any unregenerate man by the Name of Goodmciii Such an One ; until, by their indiscreet 
urging of this Whimsey, the place began to be disquieted. The wiser people being troubled at 
these trifles, they took the opportunity of Governour Winthrop's being there, to have the thing 
publickly propounded in the Congregation ; who in answer thereunto, distinguished between a 
Theological z.n& a Moral Goodness ; adding that when Juries were first used in England, it was 
usual for the Crier, after the Names of Persons fit for that Service were called over, to bid them 
all: Attend, Good Men and true ; whence it grew to be a Civil Custom in the English Nation, for 
Neighbours living by one another, to call one another Goodman Such an One: and it was pity 
now to make a stir about a Civil Custom, so innocently introduced. And that Speech of Mr. 
Winthrop's put a lasting stop to the Little, Idle, Whimsical Conceits, then beginning to grow 
Obstreperous. 

During this residence in the Old Colony he seems to have entered upon a 
vigorous endeavor to familiarize himself with the aboriginal language and 
habits, and to gain some foundation for religious influence over the Indians ; 
the result of which was seen in his Key Into The Language of America, etc., 
which was published in 1643 ; and the good effects of which colored all his 
Rliode Island life.^ He appears to have supported himself largely, if not 



"•^ Winllirop's y^Jwr/:^/, i: 91. 

•^ Ma^7ial:a,\\'. 13. 

23*'My soul's desire was to do the natives good, and 
to that end to have their language." \_Answer to 11^. 
//arris, etc., cited by Arnold, HUt. R. /.\: 973. So he 
says again : "And as to these Barbarians, the Holy God 



knows some pains I took uprightly in the Main Land 
and Islands of New England to dig into tlicir Barbarous, 
RocUie Speech, and to speak something of God unto 
their souls, etc." \Geo. Fox Digged out 0/ //is Bitr- 
rowes. etc., Apendix. 93]. So he says he had ** a constant 
zealous desire to dive into the natives' language- God 



[7] 



mainly, by manual labor while there — as, in those days of poverty, was the 
common lot at Pl3-mouth.'-'^ Although not engaged in trade as a business, he 
appears to have traded somewhat also, to help himself witlial.*'^ His oldest 
child, Mary, is reputed to have been born during this residence among the 
Pilgrims/'' 

Not finding at Plymouth such a concurrence as he expected in *' divers of his 
own singular opinions" which he "sought to impose upon others " there ; before 
the close of 1633,^- Williams was back at Salem — practically assisting Mr. Skel- 
ton, "by way of prophecy," though "not in any office."^ It will aid us toward 
the further comprehension of his character and life, if we pause here to consider 
the impressions which had been made by him upon the good men of Plymouth 
church during this residence ; and especially upon persons of so sweet a 
charity, yet so sterling a discretion, as the two leading minds of that colony, 
Governor Bradford, and Elder Brewster. 

Bradford says:^ 

Mr. Roger Williams (a man godly and zealous, having many precious parts, but very unset- 
tled in judgmente) came over first to ye Massachusetts, but upon some discontente left yt 



was pleased to give me a a painful, patient spirit to lodge 
with them in their filthy smoky holes (even while I lived 
at Plymouth and Salcm)to gain their tongue. . . I 
was known by all the Wampanoags and the Narragan- 
sctts to be a public speaker at Plymouth and Salem, and 
therefore, with them, held as a sachem." {Letter cited 
in Knowle3*s j?yir;/wrr, loS, 109.] So speaking, in 1661, 
of Ousamaquin [Massasoit] Mr. Williams said: "he and 
I had been great friends at Plymouth." {Paper of R. W. 
Backus*3 //:>/. -V, Eiig. i: 73]. 

**"Il is not unknown to many witnesses tn Plymouth, 
etc, that the discusser's [/'. e.y R. W.'s] time hath not 
been spent (though as much as any others whosoever) 
altogether in spiritual labours and publikc exercise of the 
word; but, day and night, at home and abroad, on the 
land and water, at the How [hoc], at the Dare, for bread, 
etc.'* [The Bloudy Tenent yet more BhuJy, 33.] He 
afterwards speaks of "labours day and night in my field, 
etc.," at Salem. [.1/r. Cotton* s Letter /l xa7nined, etc. ii.'\ 

^''.Six or .seven years after we find him repeatedly writ- 
ing to Winthrop about "his o'.d and bad debtor, Mr. 
George Ludlow," (| Miss. I fist. Coll. vi: 253, 256,] and 
this he elsewhere explains {Ibid ^\^\ thus: "the debt 
was for mine o^vne and wiucs better apparel put of to 
him at Plymmouth." Ludlow himself in a letter to Wil- 
liams acknowledges further his indebtedness, for (1) •* 
heifer ; (2) upwards of 80 lbs. of tobacco ; (3) some goats ; 
<-l)an "house watch ;" (5) another new gown of Mrs. 
Williams's, that cost between 40J and joj. [5 ^fa^x. f/isl. 



Coll. i : 250.] Such would seem to have been the custom 
of his life. In 1670, writing to ^L^jo^ Mason about his 
banishment, he names "the yearly lossc of no small 
matter in my trading with English and natives, being de- 
barred from Boston, the chicfe mart and i>ort of New 
England, etc.;" as one of the injuries which it caused 
him. [1 Miss. Jfist. Coll. i: 276.] 

^^ Backus's Hist. New Eng. i : 57, 516, (who cites the 
Providence Records). 

*- Winthrop {yourtml \\ 117] in November, 1633, r^ 
fcrs to his having returned from Plymouth to Salem. 
Mr. Cotton, who arrived at Boston 3-13 Sept. 1633. says 
Williams was "in the Bay not long before my coming." 
{Reply to Mr. Williams his Exam.^ etc., 4.] Backus 
puts his return in 1633 [i : 57.] Elton says, "in August, 
»'>J3." [>9l On the other hand, Cotton Mather says 
{Magrutlia vii: 7] hewas only two years at Plymouth; 
and Bcntley[i Afass. Hist. Coll. vii: 247] without citing 
his authority, says he was back at Salem "before the 
close of 1632,'' and that his eldest child was born there. 
Savage {Gen. Diet, iv: 56S] says he continued at Plym- 
outh a *'good p."irl of two years." Morton t-^'- ^"jC- 
Mem. 7S] who was himself there all the lime — a younft 
man perhaps twenty years of age — says he lived at 
Plymouth "about three years." The weight of evidence 
settles his being at Salem before the winter of 1633. 

'"^ Morton's N. E. Mem. ■j'^ ; Winthrop's Jourrui!^ \ : 
117. 

** History 0/ Plitn. Plant. 3 10. 



[8] 



place, and came hither, (wher he was friendly entertained, according to their poore abililie,) and 
exercised his gifts amongst them, and after some time was admitted a member of v'^ chnrch ; 
and his teaching well approoved, for ye benefite whereof I still blese God, and am thanUfull to 
him, even for his sharpest admonitions and reproufs, so farr as they agreed with truth. lie 
this year [he is writing under date of 1633] begine to fall into some Strang oppinions, and from 
opinion to practise, wliich caused some controversie betweene ye church and him, and in ye 
end some discontente on his parte, by occasion whereof he left them some thing abruptly. Yet 
after wards sued for his dismission to ye church of Salem, which was granted, with some cau- 
tion to them concerning him, and what care they ought to have of him. But he soone fell into 
more things ther, both to their and ye goverments treble and disturbance. I shall not need to 
name perticulars, they are too well knowen now to all, though for a time ye church here wente 
under some hard censure by his occasion, from some that afterwards smarted them selves. But 
he is to be pited, and prayed for, and so I shall leave ye matter, and desire ye Lord to shew 
him his errors, and reduse him into ye way of truth, and give him a setled judgment and con- 
stancie in ye same ; for I hope he belongs to ye Lord, and yt he will shew him mercie. 

Elder Brewster's opinion of the eccentric young man, we gatlier from the 
record of it made by Nathaniel Morton, who says:^° 

In the year 1634,*' Mr. Roger Williams removed from Plimouth to S.alem : he had lived 
about three years at Plimouth, where he was well accepted as an assistant in the Ministry to 
Mr. Ralph Smith, then Pastor of tire Church there, but by degrees venting of divers of his own 
singular opinions, and seeking to impose them upon others, he not finding such a concurrence as 
he e-xpected, he desired his dismission to the Church of Salem, which though some were unwilling 
to, yet through the prudent counsel of Mr. Brewster [the ruling elder there] fearing that his con- 
tinuance amongst them might cause divisions, and there being then many able men in the Bay, 
they would better deal with him then themselves could, and foreseeing (what he professed he 
feared concerning Mr. Williams, which afterwards came to pass) that he would run the same 
course of rigid Separation and Anabaptistry, which Mr. John .Smith the Sebaptist at Amster- 
dam had done ; the Church of Plimouth consented to his dismission, and such as did adhere to 
him were also dismissed, and removed with him, or not long after him, to Salem. 

When Mr. Williams thus, in 1633, became an inhabitant of Salem, he appears 
to have been a resident of the country about two years and six months ; to 
have been scarcely more than thirty years of age ; and both to have deserved, 
and acquired, the reputation of being, — with all his sincerity of religious feel- 
ing, and all his fidelity of godly endeavor — a rash and headstrong man ; lack- 
ing much of that consideration for the opinion of older and presumably wiser 



^ NeW'Englands Memorialt, 7S. Mr. Cotton proves 
th.it this opinion was well known in New Enghnd, for 
in his Reply to Mr. iVUliams his Exam. etc. [4] pub- 
lishedin London in i647(twcnty-two years before the first 
issue of the Mcmoriall at Cambridge), he says : '* Before 
my coming into New England, the godjy-wise, and vigi- 



lant Ruling-Elder of Plymouth (aged Mr. Bruister) liad 
warned the whole Church of the danger of his [Roger Wil- 
liams's] spirit, which moved the better part of tlie Church 
to be glad of his removall from tliem into the Bay." 

3" See note 32 ante, for evidence that this should al- 
most surely be 1633. 



[9] 



persons, which is ordinary and becoming on the part of youth;*' and with an 
eye so single toward whatever reform for the moment absorbed and centered 
the devotion of his soul, as to be unable to see in their just relations, if at all, 
considerations which were leading others, with as good a conscience, if not a 
broader exercise of reason, to dilTerent, and very likely opposite conclusions. 

Backus^ says he was invited back to Salem. But he cites no authority for 
the statement, and I have observed none outside of his pages. However this 
may have been, it appears from Winthrop^' that Mr. Williams soon began to 
act informally as an assistant to Mr. Skelton in his failing health ; and it is 
agreed on all hands that after the death of that gentleman, which took ]jlace 
2-12 Aug., 1634,^° the church called him to be their pastor. 

We have now reached a stage in this review at which it is absolutely neces- 
sary, if we desire anything like a full and just comprehension of the facts in 
their most important relations, that we should examine that contemporary his- 
tory in the father-land, which had so much to do in shaping our entire colonial 
life ; and without understanding which, it is impossible fairly to comprehend 
what took place on this side of the sea. 

On the 3-13 Nov., 1620, a patent of land^' "in the Parts of America between 
the Degrees of thirty-floure and ffourty-five," was granted by King James, on 
petition of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, to forty Associates; under a title, which, in 
its reduced form, is usually known as "The Council for New England." The 
success of this body in the disposition of its territory proved so indifferent as 
to lead its members to various extraordinary endeavors to further its ends; 
among which was the distribution of its lands by lot among them." Cape 
Ann and its vicinity thus fell to Edmund, Lord Sheffield. He sold it, by 
indenture dated i-ii Jan., 1623-4,10 Robert Cushman, Edward Winslow, and 
their associates;^' who conveyed it later to John White of Dorchester, Eng., 
and a joint-stock company which he had formed, with the view of establishing 
a settlement, as a point of supplies and a temporary haven for fishermen.'" 
This company of " Dorchester Adventurers " was afterwards enlarged ^^ and a 
new charter solicited and obtained for it of Charles I. on 4-14 Mar., 1628-9, 



'^ His decided condemnation of the Boston Cliurcli, 
ofi-liand, .llmost immediately npon his l.lnding. we h.ivc 
already seen (p. 4). We h.ive also noted (p. %\ from 
Gov. Bradford's testimony, tlic evidence that Williams 
did notscniplcat "sharp admonitions" and "reproofs" 
— some of whici), at least, were not lhou};ht always to 
"agree willt truth" — even of those who were in the 
highest office. Gov. Winthrop thought him gtiilty of 
"presumption." \yournal^\\ 13a.] 

**Hut, Ntw-Eng, i: 56. 



^ yoitritnl^ i : 117. 

♦Vi/,/, i: 13S. 

*' Hazard's Historical CoIUctions, \ : 103. 

*^TIlornton'8 Lamiitig at Cafie A tttif, ftc, 13. 

"/*/,/, 31. 

** Smith's GfHtrall Ifistorif, rti-., 147. 

*5"Our whole company, wch arc much inlarged sence 
yr. departure out of England" [Cradi<cl4*« Letttr to 
EiuUcott. Rtcordt 0/ Gov. and Comfi. 0/ Mast, i : 
383.] 



[lo] 



confirming and enlarging its powers — under the name of "The Governor and 
Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England ; " and it was under this 
instrument, thus obtained, that the affairs of the Colony of the Bay were con- 
ducted for five and fifty years — until, after long menace, in the autumn of 1684, 
the writ of quo warranto of the second Charles put an end, for a little time, to 
the very existence of Massachusetts as a body politic. 

The reader will not fail to observe that this was, in the first instance, and 
essentially, a private trading corporation ; composed of Sir Henry Rosewell, 
his twenty-five designated associates, and "such others as shall hereafter be 
admitted, and made free, of the Company and Society."^" "To the ende," 
however, " that the affaires and buyssinesses which, from tyme to tyme, shall 
happen and arise concerning the said landes and the plantation of the same, 
male be the better managed and ordered," ^'^ the Company was made a "bodie 
politique," and empowered to choose officers and to make laws ; to administer 
" the oathes of supremacie and allegiance, or either of them, to all and everie 
person and persons which shall at any tj'me, or tymes, hereafter goe or passe 
to the landes and premisses hereby mentioned to be graunted, to inhabite in 
the same ; " to punish crime, to repel force with force, and to expel and banish 
refractory and incompatible members. That is to say, some sort of public 
character, implying the power to institute a civil government for the safe man- 
agement of the affairs of the enterprise considered as a trading corporation, 
was also included in the charter; being most clearly seen in the grant of the 
powers to pardon, and to make defensive war, without order from, or recourse 
to the crown .^^ In all this, however, was but half a truth. 

The Separatists had long been harried out of England. But the growth of 
the feeling and conscience of dissent had been steady throughout the reign 
of that " learned fool " who had tried to fill Elizabeth's great throne ; and there 
were multitudes, who, weary of waiting for better times, disheartened by the 
shutting down of the gloom of absolute monarchy upon the land, and disgusted 
and distressed with the profligacy of the court ; looked toward expatriation as 
offering a sure relief, and a possibly bright future. Plymouth had been settled 
by the Scrooby-Leyden exiles just long enough to attract special Puritan atten- 
tion toward New England, and there were many Puritans scattered up and down 
the land, all of them intelligent and stout-hearted men, and some of them per- 



^^ Charter, Mass. Col, Rec. i; lo. 

"Ibid, i: 9. 

^^Ibidy'w 16. For a statement of the want of distinc- 
tion then existing between public and private corpora- 
tions, and a clear, able and conclusive judgment on the 
question of the real quality of this Charter, the exact na- 



ture of the powers conferred by it, and the justice of col- 
onial action under them, see the Lecture by Hon. Joel 
Parker, LL. D., on "The First Charter, and the Early 
Religious Legislation of Massachusetts," in Lcnvcltln^ 
stitute Lectures, by Members of tlte Mass. HistorUal 
Society, iS6g. pp. 357-439. 



["] 

sons of social consideration and financial ability, who were but waiting their op- 
portunity to emigrate thither. And it was after conference with such men, and 
with the view of furthering their desires and designs, that John White took the 
steps which he did for the legalization and endowment of this Massachusetts 
company. It became, therefore, a trading corporation with colonial intentions, 
dedicated to the high purposes of religion, and made use of for their own relief 
by religious men, who had been aggrieved and oppressed under the hard and 
stupid policy of the reigning monarchs — for Charles had, now for four years, 
not only been making his father's bad matters worse, but had been adding new 
elements of discord, and introducing new expedients of oppression. 

It is not important in this connection to dwell upon the details of the pro- 
visions of this Charter, further than to note: (i) that nothing whatever is said 
in it with reference to the subject of religious liberty (an omission which, under 
the circumstances, was taken as significant of the king's intent to pursue a 
liberal course on that subject) ;■" (2) that it conferred on the company the 
function of self-government, so far as their laws should not be repugnant to 
those of England ; (3) that it gave them the power to admit new associates on 
such terms as might seem good to them ; (4) and to administer the oaths ; (5) 
and, " for their speciall defence and safet}', to incounter, e.xpulse, repell, and 
resist by force of armes, aswell by sea as by lande, and by all fitting waies and 
meanes whatsoever, all such person and persons as shall at any t}-me here- 
after attempt or enterprise the destruccion, invasion, detriment, or annoyaunce 
to the said plantation or inhabitants.'"" 

At first sight it is difficult to understand how Charles, consistently with his 
obvious feelings, and usual policy, could have signed a charter on the whole so 
liberal as this, and one so favorable to Puritan desires of emigration to New 
England. Dr. Palfrey, who was the first of our historians to develop fully the 
indispensableness of an accurate study of collateral events in England to 
any clear conception of the progress of affairs in the colonies, has acutely sug- 
gested that the King had, in this act, a purpose " to encourage the departure of 
Puritatis from England, at the time when he was entering upon measures which 
might bring on a dangerous conflict with that party.'"' However this may 



'"There is plenty of evidence that private intimations 
were Riven of the intention of the government to .illow 
the colonists to suit themselves in these matters. Win- 
throp [ytrurfiij/f t : 103] sets clown the assurance which 
came to them (in the spring of 1633) from the i'rivy 
Council, who had been pestered by Gardiner, and others 



Church of England 11 • n'tat it totti (OHsidrrtd, 

thai it '.vox the /reeiiotnj'roin titch things thiii macU 
t^rofiU come over to its, ttc^ 

'"Mass. Col. Rec. i: i3. 

" He adds to this, the following \liist. Nmi Eitfr, \: 
392I : " The Charter of the MassaclmsctLs Company had 



to control the matter of religion, in these words : "his I passed the seals almost simultaneously with the King's 
maiL-,iv did not intend to impose the ceremonies of the 1 annunciation, after an exciting controversy with three 



[12] 



have been, the foundations on which the Massachusetts colony afterwards reared 
itself, were laid, in accordance with the provisions of this patent, under circum- 
stances decidedly more favorable than had been enjoyed by their weaker Plym- 
outh brethren ten years before. 

Let me here repeat and emphasize, that it may be remembered by and by 
when it becomes essential to the fair interpretation of what was done to Roger 
Williams — that this " Dorchester Company," originally founded on the trans- 
fer of a portion of the patent of Gorges, 'and afterwards enlarged and reauthor- 
ized by the charter of Charles I. as the " Governor and Company of the 
Massachusetts Bay," was in its beginning, in point of fact, neither more nor 
less than a private corporation chartered by the government for purposes of 
fishing, real-estate improvement and general commerce ; for which it was to 
pay the crown a fifth part of all precious metals which it might unearth;^- It 
w^as then more than this only in much the same sense as the egg new-laid is 
the full-grown fowl, or the acorn the oak. It was not yet a State. It was not 
even, in the beginning, in the ordinary sense, a colony.^"^ It was a plantation^ 
with a strong religious idea behind it, on its way to be a colony, and a State. 
In the original intent, the Governor and General Court, and therefore, the gov- 
ernment, were to be and abide, in England. When, in 162S, Endecott and his 



Parliaments, of liis purpose to govern without Parlia- 
ments in future. It might well appear to him, that, in 
the contests which perhaps were to follow, his task would 
be made easier i f numbers of the patriots could be tempt- 
ed to absent themselves from the kingdom; and when 
he should have succeeded, and the laws and liberties of 
England should be stricken down, there would be noth- 
ing in his past grants to embarrass him in his treatment 
of the exiles, and his arm would be long enough to reacli, 
and strong enough to crush, them in their distant hiding- 
place. Or, if no scheme so definite as this was enter- 
tained, the grant of the charter, inviting attention to a 
distant object, might do something for his present relief, 
by breaking up the dangerous concentration of the 
thoughts of the Puritans on the state of affairs at home." 
Dr. Palfrey adds plausibility to this view, by appending a 
quotation from Thomas Carew, a dramatic poet who was 
on intimate relations with the King, and who remarked 
(in a masque, entitled Caluvt Britanniatm, which was 
performed at Whitehall 1S-2S Feb. 1633-4. at which per- 
formance the King himself took part) : "Send them [the 
Vices] to the plantation in New-England, ivhich Jutth 
purged more inruh^tt hutnors from iJte politic body, 
than guaiacum, and all the West-Indian drugs have from 
the material bodies of this kingdom." [Chalmers's 
Ettglisk Poets^ v: 629.] 

'^^Mass. Col. Records, i: g. 



'"'■'' Blackstone designates three sorts of colonies, the 
third being: "Charter governments, in the nature of 
civil corporations, with the power of making by-laws for 
their own interior regulation, not contrary to the laws of 
England ; and with such rights and authorities as are 
specially given them in their several charters of incorpo- 
ration." {_Com. on Laivs 0/ Eng. i. Introduc sec. 4.] 
This accurately describes the kind of colony which Mas- 
sachusetts eventually became. But there would seem to 
be, in all such enterprises, a nascent period during which 
the private trading corporation element strongly predomi- 
nates over the colonial. I might illustrate by the Hud- 
son's Bay Company, which existed into our time with its 
original charter — strongly resembling that of the Massa- 
chusetts Company — and which has always been rather a 
corporation for trade chartered by England, than a 
colony of England, on American soil. 

^ It was styled a "plantation" repeatedly by Win- 
throp at the time he was discussing the question of cast- 
ing in his lot with it, and in the famous "agreement" 
which was signed 26 Aug.-5 Sept. 1629, by liim and 
eleven others at Cambridge. \.Life and Letters o/John 
IVinthrop, i: 327, 340, 344, ctc.\ It was so styled in 
the act of the General Court of the Company, which 
authorized Endecott and his companions to form a gov- 
ernment at Salem, 30 Apr.-io May, 1629. {CoUectiotis 
0/ Atner. Antiq. Soc. iii : 3S.] 



[13] 



little party of pioneers had been sent over to Salem, his authority was expressly 
dec ared to be "in subordination to the Company heree [that is, in London] "« 
And It was only when Cradock found that so many practical difficulties threat- 
ened all procedure upon that basis, as to make it unlikely that Winthrop and 
Saltonstall, and Johnson, and Dudley, and other men whose cooperation was 
greatly to be desired, would consent to become partners in the enterprise 
unless a radical change were made in that respect ; that he proposed and thJ 
Company consented, "for tlie Advancem< of the Plantacon, the inducin<x & 
encouraging Persons of worth & qualitie to transplant themselucs and famvTyes 
thether, & for other weighty reasons therin contained, to transferr the Gou'vnmt 
of the Plantacon to those that shall inhabite there, etc."*' It was even a o-rave 
question of law whether, under the terms of the Charter, this transfer wcre^pos- 
sible; but as that instrument did not contain in express language any limitation 
of the residence of those who were to act under it; and on tlie general le-al 
principle that a grant may be interpreted as favorably as possible to the -rant- 
ees, reenforced by the special fact that the Charter contained in itself the war- 
rant for putting the construction most favorable to the grantees upon its provi- 
sions ;^' they took the responsibility : — so quietly, however, that the home gov- 
ernment seem to have remained in ignorance of the fact for more than four 
years thereafter."^ 

Such being this corporation styled "The Governor and Company of the Mas- 
sachusetts Bay," let us carefully notice, step by step, the quality of its acts, after 
by the coming over of Winthrop and his associates, it commenced its work 
on the ground over which its jurisdiction extended. By what it did, we shall 
gain important evidence as to what it considered itself authorized to do, not 
merely; but as to the pure and natural motives which governed some of its 
orders to which exception has not unfrequently been taken. 

The first session of the Company for business on this side of the sea, of 
which we have record, was held ten weeks after the landing, at Chariesto'wn, 
on the 23 Aug.-2 Sept. 1630. Among the votes passed at that session was one 
issuing a process against Thomas Morton of Mount Wollaston.^" At the second 



" riu Comfany'i Records. Ibid, -m : 47 

<^lbid. 

""And sli.ilbc con.itruccl. reputed, and adiudRed In 
all cases most favounibllc on the bclialf, and for the bcn- 
cfilt and bchoorc, of the saidc Governor ,nnd Company 
and their succcisors." {Miui. Col. Rec. i: iq.] 

"Palfrey supposes tlm Cradock's answer to the Or- 
der of Council, 21 Feb. -3 Mar. 1631-4, first apprised the 
government of this, ihlist. A'. Eng. 1 : 3;i.J 



"Thomas Morton, who describes himself as " of Clif- 
fords Innc Gent," and whom Dudley described .as "an 
Alturney in the West Countryes, while he lived in Eng- 
laiTd" {Drnkfi Boston, i; 113], who made himself a 
nuisance in New England from the beKinniuK, and for 
his dangerous dealingi with the Indians, and other 
things, had been sent home by the Plymouth men in the 
summer of i6j3 ; but had returned, and commenced 
anew hia reckless and periloui cirecr at Quincy. 



[14] 



session, 7-17 Sept., that "process" bore fruit in an order to set this Morton 
" into the bilbowes," and then to ship him back to England. It would seem 
from Winthrop that this was done specially "for his many injuries offered to 
the Indians;"™ while the Court order itself provided for payment to be made 
out of his goods " for a cannoe hee vniusdy tooke away from them," and for 
the burning of his house "in the sight of the Indians, for their satisfaccion, for 
many wrongs hee hath done them, from t>'me to tyme."" 

At the very next Court, 28 Sept.-8 Oct., one Thomas Gray, who seems 
to have been an incorrigible rascal,'^^ was ordered " to remoue himselfe out of 
the lymetts of this pattent before the end of March nexte.""' Early in the 
ensuing spring, i-ii March, 1630-1, six individuals were directed to leave 
tire jurisdiction, as " persons vnmeete to inhabit here," besides " Sir Christo- 
pher Gardiner and Mr. Wright," who were sent as prisoners to England.'^* On 
the 3-13 May following, Thomas Walford of Charlestown and his wife were 
enjoined to "'departe out of the lymits of this pattent before the 20th day of 
October nexte, vnder paine of confiscacion of his goods, for his contempt of au- 
thoritie & confrontinge officers, etc.""^ On the 14-24 June succeeding, Eliiiip 
Ratclifle was fined ^^40. and "banished out of y« lymitts of this jurisdiccion, 
for vttering mallitious & scandulous speeches against the government & the 
church of Salem, etc., as appeareth by a particular thereof, proued upon oath."*' 
At the Court of 6-16 September following, Henry I^'nn was sentenced to be 
whipped and banished before the 6-16 October next, "for writinge into England 
falsely & mallitiously against the government & execution of justice here.""' 

Here, within a period less by one day than a single year, and within a period 

of only fourteen days more than a single year after the court of the corporation 

had first organized itself for business in New England, it passed sentences of 

f exclusion from its territory upon fourteen persons. Endecott, in the summer 

of 1629, in like manner had not hesitated to take the responsibility of sending 



w Jourjial, i : 34. 

'^Miiss. Col. Rec. i: 75. 

^ Among other things laid to his charge, he was himself 
drunk, he kept a tippling house, he was profane, and 
drew his knife, in a ruffianly way, in presence of the 
Court. [_Ibidf i ; 92, 234, 268, 270, 297.] 

ra/iiV/, i: 77. 

'^ These were Messrs. Aleworth, Weaver, Plastowe, 
Shuter, Cobbett and Wormwood. Ui>id^ i: S2.] 

«/Wrf, i: S6. 

^ Ibid, i : SS. This appears to have been a very ag- 
gravated case. The fellow [ Winthrop. 1:56] was a ser- 
vant of Mr. Cradock, and I am sorry to say, had his 
ears cropped, besides his fine and banishment ; but those 



were days when such punishments were thought just 
and right Within a few months of this time William 
Prynne, the famous Puritan lawyer, was sentenced by 
the Star Chamber to pay a fine of ;£s,ooo, to be expelled 
from Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn, to be disbarred and de- 
graded, to lose both his e.irs, and to be close prisoner 
for life ; all for ha\'ing written the H istrio-Mastix, in 
which he had spoken sharply of " women-actors," which 
was supposed to be levelled at the Queen. 

^^ Ibid, i: 91. Mr. Savage [note Wiitthropfii 61] 
thinks his sentence was remitted, though the records do 
not mention it, because he was fined ten shillings for ab- 
sence from training, in Nov. 1632. But that may have 
been another person of the same name. 



[15] 



home John and Samuel Browne, although they were " amongst the number of 
the first Patentees, men of Estates, and men of Parts and port in the place,"'"* 
not because tliey insisted on worshiping with the aid of the Rook of Common 
Prayer, but because they so conducted themselves in regard to the matter, as 
to endanger faction and mutiny; so tlaat "the Governour told them 'That New 
England was no place for such as they.""^" In doing so, he had faithfully 
obeyed the spirit and the letter of the Company's instructions. They had fore- 
seen the difficulty of getting on in a new plantation with opinionated and insub- 
ordinate men. They had written him especially as to Oldliam : " Wee fynde 
him a Man soe affected to his owne opinion, as not to bee removed from it, 
nether by reason nor any prswasion ; and vnlesse hee may beare sway, and 
haue all things Carrj-ed to his good likinge, wee haue little hope of quiett or 
comfortable subsistancc where he shall make his aboad ;"'" urging great for- 
bearance, but counselling " a more severe course, when faire meancs will not 
prvaile." They had directed him also in regard to Rev. Ralph Smith : " That 
vnless hee wilbe conformable to our Gouernment, you sulTer him not to re- 
maine within the Limitts of our graunt."'' And, in general, they had enjoined 
upon him to hold a strict and steady hand upon all who should prove to be dis- 
orderly : " Wee desire, (if it may bee) that Errors may bee reformed with lenitie 
or mylde Correccon ; and if any prve incorrigable, & will not bee reclaimed by 
gentle correccon, .ship such prsons home, rather then keep them there to infect, 
or to bee an occasion of Scandall vnto, others ; wee being fully prswaded that 
if one or two bee soe reshipped back, and certificate sent home of their misde- 
meanor, it wilbe a Terror to the rest, and a meanes to reduce them to good 
conformitie."" It is noticeable also that in the same letter the company 
expressed themselves strongly as to the need of the prevention, if possible, of 
the " moving of needless questions to stirr vp strife . . from which small 
beginnings great mischiefs have followed ; " and the special importance "that 
there be none in our precincts permitted to doe any iniurie (in the least kinde) 
to the heathen people ; and if any offend in that way lett them receive due Cor- 
reccon.""^ Their second General letter to Endecott and his associates, reiter- 



" Morton's AT, E. Mem., 76. 

ra/i/i/, 77. 

'^Thc Company's First General Letter of Instruc- 
tions to Endecott and his Council. [Trans. Amer. 
Antiij. StK. iii: 83.] 

" /*/,/, 85. 

"/«(V/, 89. 

" " Yctt. because it is often found tliat some busie pr- 
sons (led more by their will then any good warrant out 



of God's word) lake opporttmiltc of moving needless ques- 
tions to stirr vp strife, and by that meaner to bcRetl a 
question, and bring men todecLircsomedifTcrent Judj^mt, 
(most comonly in thitiRS indlflcreni) from wch small 
beginnings great mischiefs haue folIowc<l, wee pray 
you, and the rest of the Counccll, that if any such di^ 
putcs shall happen among you, that you suppress them, 
and bee carcfull to m.iintaine peace and vnitie." [IbU, 
90 and So- ] 



[i6] 



ated their view of the importance of this general policy: "feare not to putt 
good lawes, made vpon good ground and warrant, in due execucon.""^ 

Such having been the line of conduct adopted, after much consideration, in 
the earliest days of the settlement of Salem by the Dorchester Company, and 
subsequently endorsed by the enlarged body acting under the new Charter in 
their favorable review of Endecott's treatment of the Brownes," it was the most 
natural thing in the world that it should be pursued by the " Governor and 
Company of the Massachusetts Bay," when they were brought in person face to 
face with the evils which it was intended to remedy. Apparently, Endecott on 
his arrival had found a few lawless men — like Thomas Morton and Thomas 
Walford — here and there settled upon the soil; whose evil conduct he could 
note, but, with the small company at his command, could not control. In the 
full conferences in regard to the state of things which would naturally follow 
Endecott's intercourse with, and report to, Winthrop and the Assistants on their 
arrival, it would be a matter of course that he should point out these nuisances 
which required abatement ; and the large action of the first twelvemonth in 
this line may be thus accounted for ; while it was to be expected that the vigor 
thus shown in the management of affairs would make such labor lighter for 
some time to come. More than a year, indeed, elapsed before it became need- 
ful to repeat this action, when at the Court of 3-13 Oct., 1632, Nicholas Frost, 
for sundry gross offences, among which theft from the Indians was included, 
was sentenced to "be fined, whipped, branded, & banished oute of this pattern, 
with penalty that if euer hee be found within the lymitts of the said pattent, 
hee shalbe putt to death." ''^ This appended clause seems to have been the 
fruit of experience already had ; some formerly sent away having availed them- 
selves of the fact that no legal risk attended their return, to come back and 
repeat the offence of their presence. Almost another year went by, when one 
John Stone from the West Indies, captain of a small ship, behaving in a 
drunken and dissolute manner, blackguarding those who sought to restrain 
him, and exhibiting mutinous violence, the Court, 3-13 Sept., 1633, fined him 
heavily, and prohibited his again "comeing within this pattent without leaue 
from the Gouermt, vnder the penalty of death."" The next exercise of this 
power which I discover, was, twenty-five months and five days thereafter, when, 
on the same occasion, John Smyth and Roger Williams were ordered to " de- 



'* Ibid, 107. 
'•'Hid, lb. 

'•' Rec. CoL Mass. i : loo. 

" This feUow had had previous trouble with the Plym- 
outh men, who bad meditated sending him to England 



on a charge of piracy, and he w-as the next year killed by 
the Indians, on the Connecticut river. It seems, with 
his other iniquities, he w-as a punster, calling Mr. Justice 
Ludlow a "just-ass." [ii>iJ,\; loS; lt'inihrop,\: 104, 
III, 14S; Morton's iV. E, Mem. 92 ; Huooard, 156. j 



[17] 



parte out of this jurisdiccon within sixe weekes nowe nexte ensueing;"^^ which 
action will, by and by, be more particularly considered. 

What was the precise nature of this Court action by which Roger Williams 
became, in his turn, not less than the twentieth person thus ordered beyond the 
limits of the Massachuseits plantation, within the first seven years of its life? 

Banishment, in the usual sense of that term, clearly it was not. Both Magna 
Charta, and the Habeas Corpus act, forbid the sending of a freeman out of the 
realm without his consent, but by act of Parliament."^ The king could not do 
that ; although, by a writ o( ?ie exeat, he could prohibit any subject from leaving 
his kingdom without license; and John Winthrop, and his associates, were 
much too shrewd, in the face of the fundamental condition of their Charter 
restraining them from all action " contrarie, or repugnant, to the lawes and 
statutes of England," to undertake what the king himself could not do. More- 
over, banishment involved a State which could banish, and that the banished 
parties be members of it; conditions which could hardly be claimed here to 
exist. There is no evidence that this plantation had by this time come to 
regard itself as being strictly a civil government at all. It acted in this — as 
it was then acting in regard to all other matters — as a Company,^ on those 
simple principles of natural justice which give to any association the right to 
decline to admit,^' or to exclude, unsuitable and incompatible members. It 
acted, moreover, in exact accordance with that provision of its Charter which 
had been inserted to meet an exigency almost sure to arise, and which — if it 
could be met in any other way at all — could be met in no other way so well.^ 
While the facts: that the plantation had a religious basis, which itself might 



''^Afass. Col. Rec. i: 159, 160. It is true, Indeed, I'lat 
in the winter of 1634-5 0"c Abigail Gifford, widow, who 
had been living upon the parish in Willesden, near Lon- 
don, but had been somehow smuggled over, "being 
found to be sometimes distracted, and a very burden- 
some woman," was sent back to the parish whence she 
came. \Vf\Ti\\\ta\>% Journal, i: 153.] 

^Black-stone, IJ. I. Ch.ip. i: sec. 2. [Personal Lil^ 
erty of the Subject \ He says that exile was first intro- 
duced into England as a punishment, in (he 3<jth of Eliz- 
abeth \ 1 5'>6-7] when a statute enacted that "such rogues 
as were dangerous to the inferior people should be ban- 
ished the realm." Whether in virtue of that act, just 
passed, or not, Francis Johnson, liis brother George and 
others, were banished to Newfoundland in the summer 
of '597' [Geo. Johnson's Discourse 0/ some Troubles 
and Excommunications in t/u Banislud English 
Church at Amsterdam, loA, 109.] 

•^"The right of the Governor and Comiwny of Mas- 
uchusetts Bay to exclude, at their pleasure* dangerous 



or disagreeable persons from their domain, they never 
regarded as questionable ; any more than a houscho'der 
doubts his right to determine who shall be the inmates 
of his home. No civilized man had a right to come, or 
to be, within their chartered limits, except themselves, 
and such others as they, in the exercise of an absolute 
discretion, saw fit to Imrbor." [Palfrey, //«/. A'. Eug. 
i: 299.] 

*' This right to decline to admit was sometimes exer- 
cised. Winthrop siys: "The in.vitcr [of the ship Hand- 
maid arrived at INymouthj came to Boston tit-21 Nov. 
ifiVA ^viih Capt. Staudish and two gentlemen passengers, 
who cimc to plant here, bnt havin/^ no testimony^ tw 
tvjuld not receive tlitm.'^ [yottrnr.l, x: 3S.J 

•'This clause gave them the right to "'cxpulsc'* by 
"all fitting waics and nicancs wli,it*^>evcr,** all }>cr3ona 
who should "at any tyme hcrc-ifier attempt, or enicr- 
prisc" any " detriment or annoyaunce to the said plan- 
tation, or inhabitants." [Charter, M/us, CoL Rtc. i; 
18.J 



[i8] 



suggest exclusions possibly unsuggested by its commercial aspects, yet on that 
account rather the more, than the less, to be considered ; that they were in the 
dangerous neighborhood of they knew not how many, nor how bloodthirsty, 
savages ; and that certain threatening circumstances, which remain to be 
explained, were glooming the horizon at home, and exciting special solicitude 
as to the immediate future of the enterprise ; urged them to exercise the ex- 
tremest care to knit themselves, as soon as might be, strongly together — to make 
their company spiritually homogeneous, their policy humane and benevolent 
toward the Aborigines, and their entire life such as would triumphantly bear 
even hostile scrutiny. 

A plantation like this — and all the more that it was at a remove from the 
mother country so considerable as three thousand miles of obscure ocean then 
necessitated — must have some method of effectually ridding itself of such 
rogues, vagabonds, visionary, pragmatical, incongenial and unmanageable char- 
acters as are apt to be thrown off like spray from the forefront of any advancing 
wave of immigration. Capital punishment would be open to many objections; 
would be generally extreme, even for those whose influence might be most 
intolerable. There were no prisons in which to submit them to long periods 
of confinement. So that by far the most available course of procedure clearly 
was to send such persons outside of the jurisdiction, and to hedge up the way 
against their return by such penalty as should make it for their safety, as well 
as for their interest, to relieve the Colony of the calamity of their presence.*' 
Nor could such transportation outside of the lines of the plantation be, in itself, 
in the nature of an extreme hardship and barbarous punishment ; for old Eng- 
land was always accessible to the outlaw, and, in the new world, besides 
unlimited wildwood range, where vastly more fertile and attractive shores invited 
inhabitation and tillage, there were the scattered settlements of Newfoundland 



83 "The freemen of the Massachusetts Company had a 
right, in equity and in law, to expel from their territory all 
persons who should give them trouble. In their corpo- 
! rate capacity, they weje^ owners of Massachusetts in fee, 
by a title to all intents as good as that by which any free- 
holder among them had In;ld his English farm. As 
against all Europeans, whether English or Continental, 
they owned it by a grant from the crown of England, to 
which, by well-settled law, the disposal of it belonged, 
in consequence of its discovery by an English subject. 
In respect to any adverse claim on the part of the natives, 
they had either found the Kind unoccupied, or had be- 
come possessed of it with the consent of its earlier pro- 
prietors. For the purpose of being at liberty to follow 



their own judgment and inclination in respect to mat- 
ters regarded by them with the profoundest interest, they 
had submitted to an abandonment of their homes, and to 
the extreme hardships incident to settlement in a distant 
wilderness. They thought they had acquired an absolute 
right to the unmolested enjoyment of what had cost them 
so dear. Having withdrawTi .across an ocean, to escape 
from the interference of others with their own man- 
agement of their own affairs, they conceived that they 
were entitled to protect themselves from such interfer- 
ence for the future by the exclusion of disturbing intru- 
ders from their wild domain. . . In this, as in other 
respects, their charter was their Palladitmi." [Palfrey's 
Hist. N. Eng. i: 387.] 



[19] 



and what aftemards became Maine and New Hamn.=h;r« .. 
Gave ample room, and verge enough 

malicious misrep,e,e„,„i„„s of' ,„e ^I ..C, , '„!' ,="' 'SrtT.i! r f """ 

I have intimated that there were circumstances takin^r place in En-^hnd f 
nature to excite alarm in Massachusetts inrl nf . .1 "''/"^''^'" i-ngland, of a 

part of the king and his counsellors, than to the hope that it might at \L2Z 
poranly play into his hands, by removing out of the kingdom T mber oTa e,-s 

'^^^;;^;^-^^o^^^^ ,,^^^ ^^^ » ^ ^^^^ accLpi-Jl^m;:: 



" X^/fy " Mr. William, hi. Examination, .Ic, 8 
If "one Josias Plaistowc, " whom Wi„,|,r„p „c„. 
tions (7o«r„a/, i .- 62] and who figure, i„ ,hc courl rec- 
ord, of 27 Scpt.-7 Oct. ,5j,, be the s.ime aj the "Mr 
Plajlo«-e"„ho had been ordered home to England in the 
previous March -but who, poMibly, did not go -his 



sin was of the same description with Morton and Frost's- 
masmuch a, "fur stealeing < ba.l,etts of c.rne from the 
Indian, he was ordered to "retunie them 8 ba,kctt» 
aBaine, be flined i.^, & hereafter to be called by the 
name of JosKa^ & not Mr., a. fomterl, hee vsed .0 be." 
\illau. Cat. Rtc. 1: 9J. ] 



[20] 

of his tyrannous ends. For the first three or four years of its existence the 
plantation was too feeble to call for special notice. But subsequently emigra- 
tion from England grew larger, and included many men of substance and influ- 
ence ; and it became clear that the transplanted shoot had taken deep root, 
and would be reasonably sure of a vigorous life. The king had made consider- 
able progress as an absolute monarch, reigning without the inconveniences of a 
parliament ; the star chamber was as yet unopposed in its successful career of 
infamy ; and to the royal eye all circumstances began to look favorably toward 
the execution of that real interior purpose of his heart, which involved the 
stamping out of dissent at home and abroad. So that he and his Privy Coun- 
cil were in a good frame of mind to listen kindly to any thing which might be 
made to afford pretext for a change of policy toward New England. Nor were 
there wanting individuals, some of them of social consideration and influential 
in position, who were in a state of chronic readiness to do all which it might 
come in their way to do, to work against the prosperity of Massachusetts. Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges, who had been for a quarter of a century vainly trying to 
secure a successful colony somewhere on the New England soil, and who held 
various chartered rights therein, had consented to the arrangement by which the 
Dorchester Company had undertaken a settlement at Cape Ann, "so far forth 
as it might not be prejudicial to my son Robert Gorges's interests.""* But he 
was never a friend to the movement, and was at all times ready to use his, by no 
means inconsiderable, power to second every endeavor to its disadvantage. 
Capt. John Mason, who had been governor of " a plantation in the Newfound- 
land," and who had — with Gorges, and without him — grants of New England 
land, which led him to be sensitive to the growth of Winthrop's settlement ; in 
1632 became a member of the Great Council for New England, and soon after 
one of its officers ; and stood ready with Gorges to endorse all niurmurings of 
all malcontents. The Brownes were the first to complain. Morton was not 
long in following. Ratcliffe, and later arrivals home, furnished new exaggera- 
tions of facts. Chief of all was Sir Christopher Gardiner ; one of whose dupli- 
cate English wives seems to have so prejudiced the New England men against 
him, that they doubted his nobility, doubted the nature of his connection with 
the ostensible female " cousin " with whom he traveled, and even went so far as 
to suspect him of being a Papist in disguise ; and who returned their prejudice 
to the full.*' 

*" Gorges's Brie/e Narration^ etc., chap, xxvi, [3 ^^ IVittikrop^'w 55; Morton's iV. £". jl7(?wr. 85; Hub- 

Mas!. Hist. Coll. vi : 80.] " WTiereof," Sir Ferdinando bard's Gtn. Hist. N.E.i: i49> 'S3 ; Letter 0/ Tliomas 
adds, "he liad a Patent, under the seal of the Council." I tViggin, [3 Mass. Hist. Coll. m\ : 320.] 



[21] 



Early m ,633, while Roger Williams was in the last months of his ministry 
at PI,vniouth, these grumblings came to a head in an application to the Priw 
Counc.l. Winthrop's own account of the matter is brief, and I will quote it 
that we may see it exactly as he did: *^ ' 

Ch^fslTerf"',-^"' ^'71^'^ Janc^vhich arrived in May, 1633] we understood, that Sir 
Chrstopher Gardiner, and Thon^as Morton, and Philip Ratcliff (who had been punished here 
£0 the,r misdemeanours) had petitioned to the King and Council against us, (being set on bj 

a'Ld aT f ' "' ""'"'• ''"°"' "'" '^^'' "^^S- - plantation at Pascata^uaelc, and 

aimed at the general government of New England for their agent there, Capt. Neal) The 
petition was of many sheets of paper, and contained many false accusations (and among some 
ruths misrepeated) accusing us .. /„/.„</ ..«/,.„, u /,„.. ... e^.„. «//,^^„i ,,„ ,„ /J^; 
s^^arat, fro,n //;. ./.„../. and la.us of England; that our ministers and peoMe dd continually rail 
against the Slate, church and bisltops there, etc. eominuauy rati 

Saltonstall, Humphrey and Cradock, members of the Company who remained 
in England, appeared before the Privy Council, and made answer to these 
charges so successfully that that body dismissed the accusations. It recognized 
that, were they true, they " would tend to the great dishonor of this kingdom 
and utter ru.n of that plantation," but, in virtue of the facts: that most of the 
charges were denied ; that if true they could only be proved by witnesses sum- 
moned at great expense and waste of time ; that it would work a serious harm 
to the adventurers if they "should have discouragement, or take suspicion that 
the State here had no good opinion of that plantation ;" that the fault, if any 
existed lay with a few men, rather than with those principally enga-ed • lavin- 
some of these things aside for future inquiry, it declared that "the appearances 
^^re so fair, and hopes so great," that his majesty would " not only maintain the 
hbert.es and privileges heretofore granted, but supply anything further that 
might tend to the good government, prosperity, and comfort of his people there 
of that place, etc.'"^' And so this cloud blew over, and the sun again shone 
clear. 

A year had hardly passed, however, when -the same injurious representa- 
tions being pressed upon the attention of a not unwilling Court ; and the pre- 
cedent by which, in violation of the chartered rights of Virginia, its government 
had, byawntof ^«^7i/^r/-««/^,been usurped by the King in the summer of 
1624, being pleaded — an Order in Council was obtained, in February 16,, -a 
detaining certain ships loaded with emigrants for New England, and, amont 
other things, demanding the production before the Board, by Mr. Cradock of the 



**yournal, i : 103. 

"Sec a Icucr from Winlhrop to Gov. Bradford, giving 
an account of the matter, and enclosing a copy of the 



Order of the Privy Council, of date 19-39 Jan. 163J-3, 
"exactly as wrolc in Gov. Bradford's MSS.," in Prince's 
NtTV-EngUnd Clmtuilogy, \\: 89-91. 



[22] 



Charter of the Massachusetts Company?^ The ships were subsequently released 
on the ground of their favorable relation to fishing interests of value to the 
mother country, but Mr. Cradock was compelled to reply to the Council that 
the document which they demanded was not in his possession, having been 
transported to the territory which it covered. Whereupon he received a strict 
charge to procure and deliver it. He sent over accordingly to Boston ; but 
the shrewd magistrates in July replied that they had no power to take such 
action without authority from the General Court, which would not meet for two 
months."^ 

A month had not passed, when (4-14 August, 1634), an old planter named 
Jeffery called upon Gov. Winthrop, and handed him a letter which he had just 
received out of England from Thomas Morton, in which, in an exultant tone, 
he informed him that " the King hath reassumed the whole Business into his 
owne Hands, appointed a Committee of the Board, and given order for a Gen- 
erall Gouernour of the whole Territory to be sent ouer."°" He cheerily added : 
" The Commission is past the Privy Seale ; I did see it, and the same was i mo. 
of May sent to my Lord Keeper to have it pass the Create Seale for Confirma- 
tion, and I now staye to returne with the Gouernour, by whom all Complainants 
shall haue Relief!' During the next month (iS-28 September) the Griffin 
arrived with a copy of this commission, which had been granted (28 April- 
8 May), constituting the two Archbishops, and ten others of the Privy Council^ 
a Board to regulate all plantations ; with power to call in all patents, to make 
laws, to raise tithes and portions for ministers, to remove and punish governors, 
to hear and determine all causes, and inflict all punishments, even to death 
itself."' 

The Governor and Company of Massachusetts seem to have had suspicion 
of what turned out to be the fact, that a storm was rising in England which, 
before long, might concentrate the thoughts of those in power upon domestic 
matters to that degree that the colonies should be for a time forgotten ; and so 
they felt that their strength was to sit still. When the General Court did 
assemble in September, with the demand for their Charter, and the document 
establishing the High Commission, confronting them ; it made no direct answer 
to either, but quietly took order for fortifying Castle Island, Charlestown 
and Dorchester Hights ; for drilling and disciplining the train-bands, and 
for collecting arms and ammunition.'* When the Court met again, in March, 



^Wimhrop's Journalj i; 135; Hazard's Hist. Coll. 
i: 341 ; Hubbard's A^rV^. N. E. 153. 
^'Vlinihroi^^s yourtial. \: 137. 
"2 See ihe letter, in Hazard's Hist. Coll. i : 342. 



°^ Winthrop's ^^wrKfl/, i: 143. The commission itself 
is given at full length, in Hubbard's Gen. Hist. N. E. 
264-268. 

^ Mass. Col. Rec. i: 123-125. 



[23] 

1634-5' these military preparations were still further pushed ; bullets were made 
legal tender at a farthing apiece, and the circulation of farthings was forbidden ; 
a beacon to be fired to alarm the country in case of invasion, was set up on 
what thence became named " Beacon Hill " in Boston ; a strict military disci- 
pline was established; a military Commission was organized, "to do whatsoever 
may be further behoovefull for the good of this plantation in case of any warr 
that may befall vs," and entrusted with the power of the death-penalty ; and a 
" Freeman's Oath " which should pledge fidelity to the powers that be, was 
required to be taken by every male resident within the jurisdiction, of the age 
of sixteen years, and over.°^ 

During the month previous to this (19 Feb.-i Mar. 1634-5,) all the "minis- 
ters" in the Colony had been convened by the Governor and Company, among 
other things, to answer the question : "What we ought to do, if a General Gov- 
ernour should be sent out of England?" All were present except the Rev. 
Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, and all were agreed in replying to the question: 
"We ought not to accept him, but defend our lawful possessions (if we were 
able); otherwise to avoid, or protract." °° 

On the 16-26 June a ship arrived which brought the good news that the com- 
ing of the General Governor had been for the time frustrated, by the fact that a 
great new ship built to transport him and his attendant force, had fallen to 
pieces in the launching ; and the bad tidings that the old Council for New Eng- 
land, worn out by ill success, had surrendered its charter to tiie king, and to 
the jurisdiction of a General Governor of his appointment; and that all its terri- 
tory had been distributed by lot among twelve associates. As the Massachu- 
setts men held originally by patent from this Council, of course this amounted 
to robbing them of their property, and redistributing it to others. In order that 
the forms of law might be respected, the Attorney General, in September, 1635, 
brought a writ of qtto warranto in Westminster Hall against the Governor and 
Company of the Massachusetts; fourteen charges being trumped up — some of 
which simply alleged the due exercise of powers expressly granted by the char- 
ter ! In the November following, judgment was given. Theophilus Eaton, and 
fourteen others of the original associates, came in and pleaded that they 
" wholly disclaymed " these franchises ; and were " forever excluded from all use 
and claime of the same, and every of them." Matthew Cradock made default, 
and was convicted of the usurpation charged, and taken to answer to the king 
for the same. The remaining patentees "stood outlawed.""' 

^I6idi 136-139. Mr. Skclton's place, and so was not a " minister," in 

•"Winthrop's yourmUt'i: 154. Mr. Williams prot>- 1 the close intcrjirctalion of those days, 
ably was not there, as he had not yet become p.lstorin 1 ^ Hutchinson Paptrs^ 101-104. 



[24] 



It looked as if all were over. In the eye of Westminster Hall the colonists 
of New England had no rights which anybody was bound to respect. It was 
left for those colonists to abdicate their sovereignty over the territory which at 
such cost they had legally acquired, and surrender their new homes ; or to 
make the best terms which they might be able with their new masters, with no 
security that the fresh sanctions of law would prove more sacred or secure than 
the old ; or wait until the new Governor made his appearance with his suite, 
and then try what virtue might be in the diligent use of the " ordnances" — 
" drakes," " sakers," " culverins," " musketts and bandaleroes " — which had 
been hastily gotten together for such an emergency. 

The plot was well laid, but the pious Winthrop summarizes, in half a line, the 
issue thereof; "The Lord frustrated their design.""' In what manner He 
wrought to this end, it does not fall within the necessities of this examination 
that I should take space to indicate ; for the action by which Roger Williams 
was expatriated from Massachusetts was going on here, at the same time that 
this writ was on trial in London ; and so all beyond this point would be ^.v post 
facto to his case. 

Glancing back, now, at the condition of things thus revealed on both sides of 
the sea, several conclusions become inevitable : 

1. This Massachusetts movement had powerful enemies to contend with, in 
England, from the beginning. 

2. The Company had enemies as well, from the beginning, on its own soil — 
ready to play into the hands of those abroad. Some who have been named, 
were formidable enough to be sent out of the plantation ; others less considera- 
ble remained, whose evil influence demanded unremitting watchfulness.^ 

3. The want of entire homogeneity here thus developed — as to which many 
additional facts might be cited — taken in connection with the obvious truth 
that, in the face of English hostility, the plantation not only had no strength to 
spare, but scarcely the reasonable assurance of success at the best, with almost 
the certainty of failure should it be further weakened by the rending influence 
of faction within ; must obviously have pressed upon the minds of those occu- 
pying the chief places of responsibility, the indispensable necessity of taking 



^'^yourjtaJt'w 161. 

^"^ He who is curious to look into these minuti:e may 
find evidences of the truth ofwliat I say in the Colony 
Records ; such as the cases of Tho. Foxe, [JAwj. Col. 
Rec. i: S4] ; Tho. Knower, Ul'iti, 94 1; Enslgne Jenni- 
son, [Il>id, 132] ; John Lee, Uiid.] Even Israel Stough- 
ton was "disinabled for bearelng any public office in the 
Commonwealth, within this jurisdiccon, for the space of 



three yeares, for affirming the Assistants were noe magis- 
trates " [/^/i/, 136]; and Samuel Mavericke was ordered, 
under the penalty of ^100, to " remove his habitacon for 
hiniselfe& his ffamily, to Boston," and meantime not to 
entertain strangers without leave — clearly because the 
Court was so distrustful of him as to desire, in those 
times of peril, to have him under its immediate eye. 
Uiid. 140 ] ■' 



[25] 



every reasonable precaution to avoid, if possible, further divisions of feeling, 
whether in matters of Church or State, among the settlers. 

4. The right to restrain, punish, or "expulse," those whose spirit and influ- 
ence threatened danger in this regard ; who could not be convinced of their 
error, and the disservice they were doing to all concerned, and who would 
not be quiet; involved to the plantation, as it then was situated, the difference 
between a State and chaos. 

5. Of various objectionable possibilities liable in this manner to threaten evil 
to the Colony, we may readily designate, as particularly to be dreaded, attacks 
upon the Charter, on the validity of which all tlieir pecuniary rights, as well as 
their civil franchise, depended ; on the justice and sacredness of the oaths by 
which they were seeking to cement the fragments of their immature common- 
wealth together ; and on the moral and legal right of the magistrates to fill, and 
to fulfill, their office. While it is easy for us to see that for any person of influ- 
ence in the Massachusetts of that day, to rail against the king ; to speak vio- 
lently and contemptuously of the Church of England, or to endeavor to intro- 
duce division and discord into the young churches which were still in the gris- 
tle of immaturity here ; would be to work grievous mischief not only in the 
direct and immediate consequences of such action, but by indirectly endorsing 
the justice of the very claim set up by Gardiner, Morton and RatclifCe before 
the Privy Council, that the New England " ministers and people did continual- 
ly rail against the State, Church, and Bishops there, etc."'°° 

6. Such was the exceptional prominence of the position of the elders of the 
churches of those days, that for a minister to be guilty of any of the ill conduct 
named above, would greatly exaggerate all probabilities of harm therefrom ; 
and we find, accordingly, that the government was never slow to take action, 
— even in the case of men so excellent in spirit, and so high in position, as 
John Eliot and John Cotton — whenever such a danger menaced the planta- 
tion."" 



'*See p. 21, where (he language is quoted from Win- 
ihrop's yournnl^ i : 103. 

*** As early as 21-31 l^^t '631, a sort of Ecclcsiasiicnl 
Council was held at Watcrtown to consider the fact that 
Mr Phillips and Mr. Brown, pastor and elder there, had 
publicly advocated the opinion that "the churches of 
Rome were true churches.** [Wintlirop's yourttai, i: 
58. J Another discu>ision followed on the &-i3 Dec. en- 
suing, when the matter was amicably Kcttlcd [/^i/, C>7.] 
There can be small question that the im|x»rtancc attached 
to this subicct lay in its possible |>olilical signiricancc ; 
for jf the churches of Rome were true churches, their 
me^jcrs would bo o;teu to citizenship in Massachusetts 



under the law then existing; and in tlic not impossible 
event of EnRiand's becoming Roman Catholic, that ques- 
tion mi^ht become a practical, as it would be to ihcm, a 
startling one. More trouble followed the next year, with 
the same men. A levy of £'^ (out of a total of j^fjo) had 
been laid upon Watertown, the payment of which Messrs. 
Phillips and Brown had .ulvised their people to resist, as 
"it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for fear 
of bringing themselves and posterity into bondage.'* 
They were convcnted before the Court 17-27 I'cb. iC>3i-a. 
and convinced that they had acted under a misapprehen- 
sion as to the powers of the Com;>any, when ihey '"were 
fully satisfied ; and so their submission was r.cccpicd and 



[26] 

I now return to Roger Williams, as we left him just established at Salem, 
after his removal from Plymouth, in the summer of 1633 ; that, in the light of 
the various considerations now suggested, we may endeavor a perfectly fair 
judgment upon his conduct during the next two years, and the treatment which 
he received therefor, from the government. 

I have intimated that, at the least, a year elapsed after he commenced labor, 
in a sort, at Salem, before Mr. Skelton died, and he took his place as pastor. 
Histor}'- is not wholly silent concerning him, however, during this interval. In 
November, 1633, we find him joining Mr. Skelton in taking exception to a min- 
isters' meeting, which had been established by the pastors and teachers of the 
churches of the Bay, for eveiy fortnight, at each others' houses ; — " as fearing 
it might grow, in time, to a presbyter}', or superintendency, to the prejudice of 
the churches' liberties." ^*^" While at Plymouth, Mr. Williams had written a 
" treatise " ^'^^ — unreferred to, indeed, by the Plymouth men, except as we get a 
veiled reference to it as classed under the " Strang oppinions" which, as we have 
seen,^*^ Gov. Bradford attributed to him ; and the knowledge of it came to the 
authorities of Massachusetts, on whose request (a very natural one, since the 
matter clearly had become so noised abroad, as to be a subject of remark and 



their offence pardoned." [lliu/, 70.] In July, 1632, the 
elders of the churches in the Bay, and at Plymouth (with 
the brethren) were consuhed as to whether a person 
might be a civil magistrate, and a ruling elder of the 
church at the same time. [/Sid, Si.] In the autumn of 
1632. the ministers ended a "difference between the 
Governor and Deputy." [Ibid, SS.] In February, 1632-3, 
three elders went to Nantasket, with tlie Governor and 
four Assistants, to see if it were a good place to build a 
fort. [Ibiti, c)C).\ The Governor and Council called all 
the elders together 17-27 Sept- 1633, to consult as to 
where John Cotton should settle. [Ibid, 112.] The ad- 
vice of the elders was taken 27 Dec. -7 Jan. 1633-4, by 
the Governor and Assistants in regard to Roger Wil- 
liams's opinion about the patent. [Ibidt T22.] Some of 
the elders were called in to the conference of Bradford, 
Winslow and Winthrop, 9-19 July, 1634, about the case 
of Kennebeck. [Ibidy 136.] Twenty days thereafter, 
"divers of the ministers" took part in the discussion 
which ended in fortifying Castle Island. [Ibid, 137.] In 
November, 163^, John Eliot, having taken occasion to 
blame the government for making peace with the Pequots 
without consulting the people, the Court ordered him to 
be ''dealt with" by Messrs. Cotton, Hooker and Welde. 
to bring him "to see his errour, and to heal it by some 
public explanation of his meaning ; for the people began 
to take occasion to murmur against us for it-"' They 
brought him "to acknowledge his errour" and to promise 



to '"express himself in public next Lord's Day." [Ibid, 
151.] I have already cited the fact that, in Feb. 1634-5, 
all the ministers were summoned to advise the Court 
what to do if a General Governor should be sent over. 
[Ibid, 154.] So "all the ministers" were summoned to 
act with the Governor and Assistants in hearing and de- 
ciding the case of Roger Williams. [Ibid, 15S, 162,170.] 
Dr. Palfrey, writing of 1634, says: "the clergy, now 
thirteen or fourteen in number, constituted in some sort, 
a separate estate of special dignity. Though they were 
excluded from secular office, the relation of their func- 
tions to the spirit and aim of the community, which had 
been founded, as well as their personal weight of ability 
and character, gave great authority to their aovice, etc" 
[Hist. N. Etig. i: 3S4.] The case of Mr. Cotton, in 
connection with the sad troubles of Antinomianism in 
1636-7, is too familiar to need more than this allusion 
here. 

1^2 winthrop's yojtrnaL, i: 117; Cotton's Way 0/ 
Cong. Churc/ies Cleared, etc., 55. 

^''3 William Coddington says Williams had written "a 
large Book in Quarto" against the patent. It is rot 
known to what production of Williams's busy pen this 
averment can refer, unless it be to this. [See Appendix 
to Fox and 'BumycOi.i''^ Ive-W'Eng. Firebrand Qzie^uhed, 
246.] 

'"* See p. S. The quotation is from Bradford's Hist. 
Ply in. Plant. 310. 



[^7] 

discussiony^ the " treatise " was submitted to the examination of the Governor 
and Assistants at a meeting held 27 Dec.-6 Jan. 1633-4, Gov. Winthrop 
indicates its quality, as follows t^**^ 

Wherein, among other things, he disputes their right to tlie lands they possessed here, and 
concluded that, claiming by t!ie king's grant, they could have no title, nor otherwise, exxept 
they compounded with the natives. . . There were three passages chiefly whereat they [that 
is, the Court] were much offended : (l.) for that he chargcth King James to have told a solemn 
public lie, because in his patent he blessed God that he was the first Christian prince that had 
discovered this land ; {2.) for that he chargeth him and others with blasphemy for calling 
Europe Christendom, or the Christian world; (3.) for that he did personally apply to our 
present King, Charles, these three places in the Revelations, viz. : [blank]. 

A letter has lately been discovered among the Winthrop family papers, in the 
possession of the present noble representative of that family, Hon. Robert C. 
Winthrop, LL.D., bearing date 3-13 Jan., 1633-4 — written, therefore, just one 
week after the meeting above referred to — from Gov. Winthrop to Mr. Ende- 
cott ; who \vas a parishioner and friend of Roger Williams at Salem, as well as 
one of the Assistants of the Court. This letter gives a fourth specification of 
the argument of the " treatise," as follows : *^' 



'°- More than one respectable writer has been led into 
heavy censure of the authorities of Massachusetts for 
their action in this thing. Gammell says: "the act of 
the General Court can be regarded as nothing less than 
a despotic exercise of absolute power. It demanded from 
the privacy of his own desk an unpublished manuscript 
which he had written within another jurisdiction, on a 
great subject of abstract right and natural law, and 
summoned him to appear and receive censure for the 
opinions it contained," [Z./v>, 32]; and Gov. Arnold says: 
"the arbitrary action of the Court, in calling for a paper 
written beyond the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, 'for 
Ihc private satisfaction of the Governor of Plymouth, ' 
and which had never been published, would have been 
properly resented by refusing to obey the summons, etc." 
[l/isi. R. I. i: 28.] All this is clearly founded upon 
misapprehension of the facts, and mistake in the mean- 
ing of a word. There is no evidence of any "action of 
the Court"; certainly none appears upon its Records. 
All wc know of the circumstance is from Winthrop's 
jfourtuii. He says they *'toolc into consideration a 
treatise which Mr. Williams (then of Salcm) had sent 
to them, etc." Farther on, he says Wiljiims pleaded 
that he should not "have stirred any further in it, if the 
Covemour [Winthrop] had noXrequired a copy of him." 
ti: 122-1 So that, at most, there wai only lliis action of 
the Governor, and I submit that a just rendering of the 



narrative resolves that action purely into a friendly so- 
licitation, instc.id of an official demand. Every student 
of our language knows that the word ''require'* has an 
old sense which is exactly synonymous with "desire," or 
"request" : and a reference to the authorized version of 
the Scriptures, to Shakspcarc, and oilier cotcmporary 
writers, will make it clear that that sense was common 
in our fathers' time- Take, for example, these texts: 
Esther t'l: 15, "she r^jw/Vrrf [.asked for] nothing but 
what Hegai ihc king's chamberlain, the keeper of the 
women, appointed" ; nnd 2 Sam. x:x : 3S, "and what- 
soever thou shall require (the marginal reading says, 
* Fieb choose'] of me, that will I do for llicc"; and 
Ezra via I 22, " I was ashamed to require [request] of 
the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us 
against ilie enemy in the way." Examine also Mx:betk 
[Actiii: Scene 4] where Macbeth says of Lady Macbeth: 
*'Ourho«tc«ii keeps hcritntoi but In bent timt- 
Wc will rcqiilro [rcqucit] her welcome.'* 

Still more clear is this, in Kin^ Ifenry VUlth [Act it: 
Scene 4], where Cardinal Wolsey says to the King: 

— *' most in'Rcloiii Sir, 
In humbleat munncr I rf'fiiiirc fiuppllcatc of] your UI{[bne««, 
ThrtI it *hall plcaso you to declare, etc." 

^"^ yourtiot, i: 122. 

'"^ See the Letter in Proceedings o/tfu AfassaekusetU 
Historical Society^ 1871-73, p. 343. 



[28] 



/ 



(4-) for concluding us all heere to lye under a sinne of unjust usurpation upon others pos- 
sessions. 

This letter also supplies us with the missing passages from the Apocalypse ; 
citing them in its margin as: Rev. xvi : 13-14; xvii : 12-13, ^^^ xviii: 9.^^ 
These were, therefore, as follows : 

And I saw three vncleane spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of 
the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 

For they are the spirits of deuils working miracles, which goe forth vnto the Kings of the 
earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battell of that great day of God Almighty. 

And the ten homes which thou sawest, are ten Kings, which haue receiued no kingdome as 
yet ; but receiue power as kings one houre with the beast. 

These haue one minde, and shall giue their power and strength vnto the beast. 

And the Kings of the earth, who haue committed fornication, and lined deliciously with her 
shall bewaile her and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. 

Taking these two statements of Winthrop together, it seems evident that this 
"treatise " was chiefly to the Court objectionable, and in their thought danger- 
ous, because it tended to weaken the confidence of the, freemen of the Com- 
pany in the validity of the Charter in which all their legal rights as a planta- 
tion were bound up ; because, in its logical conclusion, — which implied that 
the whole fabric of their organic life was founded on a fraud, and an usurpa- 
tion — it tended directly and inevitably toward anarchy ; and because, in a man- 
ner to their view as offensive as it was uncalled for,^"^ it insulted the last, and the 
reigning monarch, by the charges of siding with Antichrist, of falsehood and of 
'blasphemy. All this was aggravated by an apparent insincerity. Mr, Wil- 
liams had cast in his lot with them, knowing — or having the means of know- 
ing — fully what the character of the patent was before he left England ; and 
although he never became a freeman of the Corporation,^^'^ he had already 



103 This verse is dearly set down here, and where again 
referred to in the body of the letter, as xviii : 19. But 
the description of it in the letter, proves that this is a 
mistake, and that the verse really intended was xviii ; 9, 
as above. 

100 "For I would gladlye knowe to what good ende, 
& for what use of Edification, he should publishe these 
thinges in this lande (if they were as he supposethe them) 
— doth he see any pronenesse in this people to j oyne with 
the Beast or the Whore ? or dothe he feare least our Kinge 
beinge upon such a designe, would sendo for our Assist- 
ance?" \_Leiter, as above, p. 344.] 

"0 Elton [Life, 15], Gammell {Li/e^ 19], Knowles 
[Metttoir^ 49], and Underhill {Introduction to Blottdy 
Tene*U,etc., vaHanserdKnollys Society's Publications, 



p. X,] all declare that Roger Williams took the ''Free- 
man's Oath*' 1S-2S May, 1631, [Underhill says 12-21 
May.] But that was another Roger Williams, who had 
come over in the '* Mary and John" in 1630, and was at 
Dorchester among the earliest. He served on a jury to 
inquire into the cause of the death of Austen Eraicher 
2S Sept. -3 Oct. 1630 ; applied to be admitted a freeman 
19-29 Oct. 1630 — or 109 days before our Roger ar- 
rived at Nantasket ; had charge, with another, of the 
goods of Christopher Oily ver 7-17 Nov. 1634; was one of 
the arbitrators about the ship "Thunder" in the sum- 
mer of 1635, and was one of the selectmen of Dorchester 
the same year ; but soon removed to Windsor, Conn. ; 
within ten years sold his land there to Capt. Benjamin 
Newberry, and returned to Boston ; and joined the Ao- 



[29] 



become a landholder, owning ten acres besides the lot and the house in which 
he dwelt at Salem, "^ and thus he seemed by his practice to give the lie to some, 
at least, of these professions."- 

The Court advised with those whom they esteemed the most judicious of the 
elders — as was their custom in cases of doubt — and cited Mr. Williams to 
appear at their next session " to be censured ; " but as Mr. Endecott had not 
been present, the Governor wrote to him (it would seem the very letter, the 
rough draught of which has been cited above) to let him know what had been 
done, and " withal added divers arguments to confute the said errors, wishing 
him to deal with Mr. Williams to retract the same." "^ Whether* in conse- 
quence of Mr. Endecott's labor in response to this request, or not, Mr. Wil- 
liams seems on this occasion to have exhibited a submission to the mental 
influence of others which was extraordinary in his history. He wTOte privately 
to the Governor, and officially to him and the Court, '* very submissively ; '* 
intimating that he had no intention of pushing these views, and "withal offer- 
ing his book, or any part of it to be burnt." ^^* On the 24 Jan.-3 Feb. 1633-4, 



cicnt and Honorable Artillery Company in 1647. [//«- 
(cry 0/ Dorchester^ c^z ; Savage's Gen. Diet, iv : 567 ; 
Hist. AfUt. and Hon. Art. 155; Sti'.es's Hist. Ancient 
Windsor^ 135; Mass. Col. Rcc. i: 77, 133, 151. J He 
was swnrn in freeman, in accordance with his previous 
application, on the iS- 28 May, 1631, [J/ujj. Col. Rec. i : 
636] ; but Roger Williams, who was pastor at Salem, and 
the founder of Providence, was never a freeman of Mas- 
sachusetts. In this lie differed from the others who ex- 
ercised the Christian ministry in the Colony at the same 
time witli him. Wilson and Cotton of Boston, Warham 
and Maverick of Dorchester, Wclde and Kiiot of Rox- 
bury, Hooker .iiid Stone of Newtown (Cambridge), Phil- 
lips of Watertown, James of Charlcstown, Balcheller of 
Saugus. and even his associate Samuel Skelton of Salem, 
all had taken the freeman's oath. \_Ibid, 366-3O9.] 

"*There is a deed at Salem, of date October, 1635, of 
ihe sale by John Woolcott unto William Lord, both of 
Salem, of " all and every part of my house and misieed 
[mcrestcad] in Salem (formerlie in the occupnliott 0/ 
Afr. Roger li^iltianis) & from him by order from Mrs. 
Higcnson sould vnto mee, as by a quittance vnd M'- 
Wnu. Iiand doth appear." This house stood on ground 
now covered by the Kouth-eastcrn portion of the "Asiatic 
Huilding," 56 ft. south of the present meeting-house of 
the First Church It is not certain that Mr. Williams 
otuiied \\\'\n house ; nor when he left it. Rut by a letter of 
his from Providence, which scemn to have been written 
in June I'ijS, (-1 .^fiiss. Hist. Coll. vi: 230] it is made 
clear that he did subsequently own a '*howsc at .Salcm." 
and that he had nude arrangcmcnu to pay with it a debt 



of between ;^50 and C^o due to Mr. Cradock, and that 
hchad'Mong since" put it into Mr. Mayhew's hands 
(as agent for Mr. Cradock) for that purpose. A previous 
letter [conjccturally assigned to October, 1637] alludes 
to the same transaction: "1 yet know not where that 
tobacco is; but desire if Mr. Cradock's agent Mr. Jolly 
[Jolliffi:] would accept it, that it may be delivered to him 
in part of some paymentsyt;^ 7uhich / haue made o7'er 
iny hoiuse to Mr. Afay/ievj." [I&id, 2 16. J This house 
in which Mr. Williams seems to have passed tlic latter 
part of his residence in Salcm, is supposed by the Essex 
antiquaries to have formed a portion of what was long 
known as the " Curwen House " ; now, or lately, stand- 
ing on the western corner of North and Essex Sis., in 
that city. [Hist. CoU. Essex Institute^ viii : 257.] Cu- 
riously, some of the private preliminary examinations of 
the witch-craft times, arc thought to have been held in 
that house. Xlhid^ 258.] Mr. Williams also owned a 
ten acre lot "in the North Field," as appears by the deed 
of .idjoining land from Philip Cromwell to Thomas Cole, 
of date 13-23 Feb. 1650. \Ibid, 257. J 

"^ As Gov. Winlhrop puts it : '* Hut if our title he not 
good, neither by Patent, nor possession of these parts as 
vacuum domiciliitm^ nor by good liking of the natives, 
/ mervayle by vjfutt title Mr. tt^it/ianu hi$nsel/t 
holds f^* [Letter, as above, 345.] 

"•^ Winthrop's 7i»«rHrt/, ir 123. 

"*'l'his seems to have been thought the BUitable fate 
for pernicious literature. The Court, in the spring of 
1635, voted: "WhcrcTsMr. Israeli .Stoughtnn h.ilh v\rit- 
tcn a certainc booke wch. hath fMxasoQcd mch trouble & 



[3o] 



the Governor and Council met again ; wlien, witli the advice of Rev. Messrs. 
Cotton and Wilson, and finding, on further consideration, that, by reason of 
the obscurity with which the " treatise " was written, its influence might not be 
so evil as they had feared, they agreed to deal gently with the offender, and to 
pass over the offence, "upon his retractation, etc., or taking an oath of allegiance 
to the king, etc." "^ It is not altogether clear from this statement, what, precisely, 
Roger Williams finally did at this time, or whether he took the oath demanded. 
But it is clear that the authorities manifested no desire to fault him ; but ap- 
peared rather anxious to avoid, so far as they consistently might do so, all severe 
dealing, and to accept his explanations and concessions in the most amicable 
spirit ; and it is clearly involved in what Winthrop afterwards says, as well as 
in the general tenor of the narrative, that the Salem preacher was understood 
on this occasion, at least to promise not further to advocate publicly these no- 
tions about the patent, and not openly to assail the churches of England as 
being anti-Christian.™ While that representation often given, which makes 
the Governor and Assistants the aggressive party, watching perpetually for Mr. 
Williams's halting, and now and then just giving him a chance to breathe be- 
tween their foreordained attacks ; is seen to be, here, at least, not only injuri- 
ous, but absurd."^ He was the aggressor. If he had been able to restrain 
himself from attacking the fundamental basis on which all their institutions 
rested, there is no hint of any wish on their part to trouble him. They did 
not insist that he should violate the liberty of his own convictions, and 
surrender his peculiar opinions ; but only that he should refrain from " teach- 
ing publickly " in a way to undermine the foundations of their social order ; 
and from assaulting openly institutions at home in a way to bring the settle- 
ment into disfavor there, and so to imperil its, as yet uncertain, life. 

Six weeks now jjassed, during which we hear nothing of Mr. AVilliams, or 



offence to the Court, the sd. Mr. Stoughton did desire of 
the Court that the sd. booke might forthwith be burnt, 
asbeing weakeand offensiue." [Mass. Col. J?t^c.i: 135.] 
The same thing happened to William Pynchon in 1650, 
and nearly the same to the revered John EHot, in 1661. 
[Iliid, iii: 215; iv. (2): 5.] 

115 lVinihrop''s Journal^ i: 123. 

"«/i/V, 151. 

^^^Knowles says: "He \\'as now permitted^ for a 
ivhiU, to continue his ministry at Salem, without inter- 
ruption from the magistrates." [Ji/dtuoir^ 61.] Elton 
uses almost the same expression; "Williams was now 
ferntiited, for a short period, to exercise his ministerial 
labours at Salem in peace." [Li/e, 22.] Underbill's 
language looks the same way. He prefaces his account 



of the dealing of the Court with him as to this "treatise" 
witlt this sentence, which insinuates a purpose, of the 
existence of which there is absolutely no evidence : 
*' Matter for complaint was soon discovered against 
Mr. U^tiiiams ;" as if the Massachusetts Company 
spent its time in doing little else than in hunting for such 
" matter ; " and he appends to the statement of the dis- 
mi5s.al of the subject the invidious declaration; *' It will 
be seen, however, that this accusation was rcviz'cd, and 
declared to be one of the causes of his banishment." 
[Introduction to Bloitdy Teitenty etc. xiii.] And Arnold 
states it, with an equally unwarranted intimation, in 
these words : " T hus the subject rested for a few months, 
itiitil it was fottrid co/ivenient again to call it up." 
[Hist. R. I.\: 28.] 



[30 



his opinions. But on the 7-17 March 1633-4, a question was raised, on Lecture- 
day at Boston, as to whether it were the duty of all females to veil themselves 
on going abroad ? Cotton thought not : " that where (by the custom of the 
place) they [veils] were not a sign of the women's subjection, they were not 
commanded by the apostle." Endecott took the other side, and we learn from 
Hubbard that he had gained his learning, and his bias, from Mr. Williams, who 
had been preaching to his congregation their obligation in that respect.'"* The 
incident is an unimportant one, save as it illustrates the man's astonishing 
ability to see things in some light of duty different from that usual to the good 
people by whom he was surrounded. 

During the summer following, in which Mr. Skelton died, we hear nothing 
directly of Mr. Williams, though we fancy it as having been most likely about 
this time, that he gave utterance to the judgment that : " Of all Christian 
Churches, the Churches of New England were accounted, and professed by 
him, to be the most pure : and of all the Churches in New England, Salem 
(where himselfe was Teacher) to be the most pure." As the autumn drew on, 
with its ill tidings from England of the danger threatening the patent, and all 
the interests of the plantation, the Government appointed Wednesday, the 
17-27 September, to be "kept as a day of publique humiliacon " throughout 
the jurisdiction. Mr. Williams improved the occasion by preaching ; in which 
he " discovered eleven publike sins for which he beleeved it pleased God to 
inflict, and further to threaten publike calamities ; most of which eleven (if not 
all) that Church then seemed to assent unto.""'' 

Early in November (5-15) complaint was made to the Court of Assistants that 
the flag of England had been mutilated at Salem, by the removal of the cross 
from it. Inquiry was instituted, and, three weeks after, the subject came up 
again, and it became evident that Endecott had ordered the act to be com- 
mitted, on the ground that " the red cross was given to the King of England 
by the pope, as an ensign of victory, and so a superstitious thing, and a relique 
of Anti-Christ."'™ It was scarcely two months since the Griffin had brought 
over the alarming news that the Commission had been appointed over the 



"* Winthrop's Jotirnaiy i : 125 ; Hubb.lrd's Gen. 
Hul. N. E. ^o^\ Felt's Ecct. Hhl. .V. E. i: 177. 
Hubbard .tdds lite itlatement tb:il Mr. Cotton about ibis 
lime spending a Sunday at Salem, prcacbcd on tliat 
subject ill the forenoon, "witicli discourse let in so much 
light into tbcir understandings, tbat they, wbo before 
tbougbl it a shame to be seen in the public without a 
veil, were .isbamcd ever after lu be covered with them." 
Readers who remember, or will look up, ihccises named 
in liie Old Testament, of Tamar, and Ruth, will find 



assistance in imagining the grim humor of Mr. Cotton's 
discourse, and its surprising effect upon his female 
auoitors. \Gtn. xxxxnii : n^ \^\ Ruth Hi : %-\^. Com- 
pare Ezek, xvi: 16, 25.] 

""Collcin's Reflylo Mr. Witlinms his Exam., lie. 
3, H3 ; ll^ay 0/ CoH£. Churchts CUnreil, tic. z% ^t,tS' 
naiia. Book vii : 8. The Fast is recorded in M.iiS. Cot. 
Rtc. i: 13S; and Williams's account of his sermon is 
in Mr. Cotlott^t Letltr Exnmintd, ttc. 3. 

1**' Winthrop's y^wrwrt/, i : 147, 



[32] 

colonies, with power to call in their patents, and that there was danger of the 
speedy loss of all their civil and commercial rights ; and the colonists were at 
this very time hard at work in fortifying Castle Island, Charlestown and 
Dorchester, in view of possible contingencies. They were much alarmed 
therefore at this sudden and unauthorized action, " as fearing," that just at 
this juncture, " it would be taken as an act of rebellion, or of like high 
nature, in defacing the king's colors."^-' It turned out that a considerable 
popular feeling had been awakened against the cross in the ensign, so that it 
was some months before the matter was quieted, although Endecott was 
admonished, and disabled for a year from bearing office.'-- Winthrop is reticent 
in regard to the reasons of this act of the Salem Assistant, but Hubbard'^ 
distinctly lays the origin of the business at Mr. Williams's door, saying, that 
"in his zeal for advancing the purity of reformation, and abolishing all badges 
of superstition, he inspired" the movement; while Cotton Mather'"* reiterates 
a charge having in itself, it must be confessed, strong elements of probability. 

Three weeks had scarcely passed, when (27 N0V.-7 Dec. 1634) the Court 
was informed that " Mr. Williams of Salem had broken his promise to us, in 
teaching publickly against the king's patent, and our great sin in claiming right 
thereby to this country, etc., and for usual terming the churches of England 
anti-Christian."'^ Summons was accordingly granted for his appearance at the 
next Court. The next Court met on the 3-13 March 1634-5.'-'^ But there is 
no trace of any action in regard to Mr. Williams in the record of its doings ; 
none in the Governor's own private Journal, which preserved a note of so many 
things which slipped through the pen of the secretary. We are left therefore 
to the necessary inference that some reason arose for postponement in the 
case. That reason I find in the statement of John Cotton : " I presented (with 
the consent of my fellow- Elders and Brethren) a serious Request to the Magis- 
trates, that they would be pleased to forbeare all civill prosecution against him, 
till our selves (with our Churches) had dealt with him in a Church way, to 
convince him of sinne : alledging, that my selfe and brethren hoped his violent 
course did rather spring from scruple of conscience (though carried with an 



^--7iid, \: 15S. 

'^Geii. Hist. iV. Eng. 205. 

'"* "One in some authority, under the heat of some 
Impressions from the Ministry of Mr. Wiliiams. did. hy 
his own .Authority, cut the Red-Cross out of the King's 
Colours, to Testifie a Zeal against the Continuance or 
Appearance of a Superstition." [Magttalia^ Book vii : 
9.] W'iUiam Coddington, more than forty years after, '-'' Winthrop's yiJ7/?-7/a/, i; 151, 

refers to this, in his blunt and rough, but seetniugly ' ^•*'' Mass. Col. Rec. 



honest way. He says : "Another time you may have 
him [R. W.] a Teacher, or Member, of the church at 
Salem in New England : O ! Then a great deal of De- 
votion is pl.^ced in Women wearing of Vails in their 
Assemblies, as if the Power of Godliness was in it ; and 
to have the Cross out of the Colors, etc." [Letter, of 28 
June, 1677, in the Appendix of A Neiu England Fire' 
tiratid Qttenclied^ etc. 246.] 



l33] 



inordinate zeale) then from a seditious Principle." ^-^ This proposal "was 
approved and allowed,- and several of the churches, with their elders, appear 
to have gone about the work of friendly labor with the church in Salem and 
Its actmg pastor; it would seem with no result which promised to be adequate 
to the emergency — none, at any rate, which convinced him of any dutv of 
quietness. 

Accordingly we find that when the Court met, on the 30 April-io May 163=; 
the Governor and Assistants sent for Mr. Williams, and dealt with him in rela- 
tion to a new difficulty which had arisen in regard to his teaching. In the 
e-xtremely miscellaneous condition in which the colony found itself; liable to 
the influx of strangers from other settlements along the coast from Newfound- 
land to Virginia, as well as from the Bermudas and the mother-country and 
with the knowledge that many influences were at work against them • it' had 
seemed to the authorities e.xpedient to require some pledge as a condition of 
residence on the soil, which should engage new comers, at least, to such de-ree 
of subordination and cooperation as might ensure the plantation against m^any 
evils otherwise liable to threaten it. Accordingly the Court of i-io April 
previous, had ordered that every man above the age of twenty years, who was 
or proposed to be, resident within the jurisdiction for six months, or more and 
who did not become a freeman of the corporation, should take what they named 
the "Resident's Oath," on pain of being sent out of the territory should he 
refuse (after having been twice requested to do so by the Government) to enter 
into the obligations it imposed ; which were, to be obedient to the laws to pro- 
mote the peace and welfare of the plantation, and to reveal anv plots 'a-ainst 
It, which should come to his knowledge.'^ The ne.xt Court, on the i4->4 May 



■=' Rf/Ify to iMr. Williams his Exam., etc. l%. Mr. 
Cotton goes on to state the Governor's answer to tins 
request: "That wee were deceived in him IR.W.], if wc 
thought he would condescend to leame of any of us : 
And what will you doe (sailh he) when you have run your 
course, and found all your labour lost? I answered for 
the rest, we hoped better things ; if it fell out contrary 
to our hopes, we could not licipe it, but must sit downe, 
and quiet our conscience in the Lord's acceptance of our 
will and endeavour for the deed." Sec also Cotton 
Mather [,Wr^/m//a, Book vii:?.] 

'-'The form of the oath was. as follows; "I doclicare 
swearc, and call Goil to witncs, that, being nowe an in- 
habitant within the lymitts of this jurisdiccon of the 
Massachusetts. I doc acknowledge mysclfc lawfully sub- 
iect to the aucthoritie andgoucrm' there established, and 
doe accordingly submit! my pson, family, and estate to 
b« plected, ordered, & governed by the lawcs & con- 



stitucions thereof, and doe faithfully pmise to be from 
time to time obedient and conformeablc therevnlo, and to 
the aucthoritie of the Goun' & all other the magistrates 
there, and their successrs, and to all such lawes, orders, 
sentences & decrees, as nowe are or hereafter slulbe 
lawfully made, decreed, & published by them or their 
successrs. And I will alwayes indeav' (.is in duly I .am 
bound) to .advance the peace & wcllfairc of this body 
pollitique, and I will (to my best power & mcancs) seckc 
to devcrt & prevent whatsocuer may tende to the ruine 
or dam.age thereof, or of y Coun', I)c|.uty Goun' or As- 
sistanis, or any of them or their successrs, and will giuc 
siiecdy notice to them, or s/>mc of them, of any scdicon, 
violence, Ireachcric, or othr hurte or cuill well. I sli.^1 
knowc, hc.irc, or vehemently suspect, to be plotted or 
intended against them, or any of tlicni. or against (ho 
said Comonwealth or Comn", esiablishod. Soe helps 
mcc God." (,»/«!. Ccl. Rei. \: , , | 



[34] 



following, proceeded to modify the existing form of the Freeman's Oath, making 
some slight changes suggested by the exigencies sought to be guarded against 
in the other.'-^ There was surely nothing unusual to the time in this action ; as 
there appears to be nothing to an ordinary conscience objectionable in the 
intent of these oaths, or the phraseology in them employed. It is indeed hard 
to see in what way the authorities could more wisely have provided for obvious 
duties, and against possible dangers, which thronged the difficult path along 
which they were called, in God's providence, to walk. 

But Mr. Williams thought otherwise, and immediately began to preach 
against this Resident's Oath.^^° He scrupled all such endeavors to bind those 
who were not Christians. He took the ground that for a magistrate to tender 
an oath to an unregenerate person, was thereby to "have communion with a 
wicked man in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of God in 



'-^As modified, it was as follows: " I, A. B. being, 
by God's providence, an inhabitant & ffreeman within 
the jurisdiccon of this comonweale, doe freely acknowl- 
edge my selfe to be subiect to the govermt. thereof, & 
therefore doe heere sweare, by the greate & dreadful! 
name of tlie euerlyyveing God, that I wilbe true & faith- 
full to the same, & will accordingly yeilde assistance & 
support thercvnto, with my pson, iS: estate, as in equity 
I am bound, & will also truely indeav' to mainetaine & 
preserue the libertyes & previlidges thereof, submitting 
my selfe to the wholesome lawes & orders made & 
established by the same; and furthr., that I will not 
plott nor practise any evill against it, nor consent to any 
that shall soe doe, but will timely discover & reveale the 
same to lawfuU aucthority nowe here established, for the 
speedy preventing thereof. Moreouer, I doe solemnely 
bynde myselfe, in the sight of God, that when I shalbe 
called to giue my voice touching any such matter of this 
state, wherein ffreeinen are to deale, I will giue my vote 
& suffrage, as I shall iudgein myne owne conscience may 
best conduce & tend to the publique weale of the body, 
without respect of psons., or fav'of any man. Soe helpe 
me God, in the Lord Jesus Christ. [IhW, i: 117.] 

^*^Mr. Cotton goes into this matter more fully, I be- 
lieve, than any other cotemporary writer. Hesays[^<*/6' 
/(? Jt/r. IVillhiins his Exam., etc. 29] : *' This Oath, when 
it came abroad, he [Mr. W.] vehemently withstood it, 
and disswaded sundry from it, partly because it was, as 
he said, Christ's Prerogative to have his Office established 
by Oath; partly because an oath was a part of God's 
worship, and God's worship was not to be put upon car- 
nall persons, as he conceived many of the People to be. 
So by his Tenent neither might Church-members, nor 
other godly men, take the Oath, because it was the 
establishment not of Christ, but of mortall men in their 



office ; nor might men out of the Church take it, because 
in his eye they were but carnall." 

Backus — in Ills History [i : 66, etc], and still more 
especially in his pamphlet of 177S, entitled Goveriiment 
and Liberty Described ; and Ecclesiastical Tyranny 
Exposed^ L9] charges that the object of this change in the 
oath was to get rid of the phrase " lawfully made," and 
substitute for it the phrase *'7t'/;W.fj(^;«^." as describing 
those statutes to which it pledged its taker ; and that this 
was done because they had "set out to frame and enforce a 
new religious establishment, very contrary to that of Eng- 
land," and found that the old oath stood in the way of it. 
The evidence of this last assertion he finds in the fact 
that, in *'the following year, the Court sent out to all 
their ministers and brethren, for advice and assistance, 
about one uniform order of discipline in their churches, 
etc." But Dr. Backus clearly did not stop to consider 
the European aspect of American matters at that time, 
nor what the pressure then was from over sea ; in a sense 
compelling them, not merely to venture upon some reg- 
ulations and procedures which might not bear a close 
examination in the light of English law, and their 
Charter; but to take every precaution to secure the en- 
forcement of those regulations. Since Dr. Backus's 
time our nation has learned that in days of war, and rev- 
olution, red tape must take its chance. He who reads 
carefully Dr. Palfrey's lucid exposition of New England 
affairs of that period, will see, I think, that Backus was 
in error; that the change in the oath had no relation 
whatever to any plans about an unlawful establishment ; 
and that Williams opposed the oath — as he said he did, 
and as others say he did— for what lie conceived to be 
the intrinsic sin of rt«j' oath so administered; and not 
because he wished to protest against, and forestall, the 
possible founding of a New England national churcli. 



[35] 

vain."«> Playing thus directly into the hands of that snnll hut ..r 

no cotcmporary corroboration of this representation; whUc the fact that 
R c tr /°""'' ''°^'°"'^ ^^'=™°"^^' ""''•^-'^•^ History and .^e Cour 

probabl. by ,h= f.c, .ha, seventeen ,ea„ l.„er (i„ m1 's' .Zcon , T" 
no„ce of ,„c fae. .ha, "d.vers inbabitan,," „,;„ w.rj ^« ,4g ,fe" ' Sbf 

It was for this action of Mr. Williams that the Ponrf ^„ »i • 

I., to. count. He argued the matter St ^:r:,:i:;':,:r;'S;£ 

Ind'r 1 °P'"'°" °V''' ^°"''^'-'^ ^'^^' h°^^^^ "very clearly confuted" " 
and Endecott who had at first sided with his minister, LknowLred hf.self 

church rerna.n,ng still under the process of dealing with the J and hi™ 
commenced at Mr. Cotton's suggestion, to which reference has been made. 



"'Winlhrop's7«,ma/, i: ,5s. 

^J!^fi/yUA/^. lyniiam, >,U Exam., tic. ,i. 

'■j"'Tl.= pcojilc being, many of them, much taVcn 
with the .ipprchcnsion of his Rodlinci," [Wimhrop's 
7nr«al. ■: ,75]; "many, Mpccially of devout women, 
<lid embrace his opinions." UUd,\: ,j(,.] 



■" IttA^y ,0 Mr. mUiam, hi, E.am., tU. ,„ But 

hel„mMlf,„.he„n,eAV//,,el«wherefccl,it.„bequi,o 
Bumacnt to say [,): .■„,„„ „,;,, ,„„,/^ refused the 

'^■M.ui. Col. K,c. iii: 263. 
"■Wlnlhrop'syo.r,/,./, ..• ,5s. 



[36] 



Just at this time, and during these two months of May and June, 1635 — if I 
am right in my theory of resolution of the chronological difficulties involved 
in the subject — the major part of the church in Salem ; which had desired 
Mr. Williams as its teacher when the interposition of the magistrates, and 
other influences had led him to go, instead, to the Old Colony, and which for 
some twenty months had been hearing him since his return from Plymouth ; 
in the face of his position of practical — not to say factious — hostility toward 
the Government; and in the face of the dealings with him, and w^ith them^ 
of the other churches of the jurisdiction still going on ; proceeded formally to 
complete his thus far informal pastoral relation, and ordain him over them ac- 
cording to the simple rites which the early Congregationalism of New England 
had already adopted. My reasons for venturing to differ with all previous 
writers, as to the date of this event, and as to one of the most important 
circumstances connected with it, I have fully stated below. ^"' 



"'It has been usual to set down the date of this 
ordination, as Gammell does \Lt/e, 37], as in August 
1634. But I find no such date given in the earliest 
authorities. Hubbard [Gc«. Hist. N. E. 204] says that 
**iu one year's time" lie had filled Salem with principles 
of rigid separation, etc., and represents the ordaining to 
have taken place some time after that; and Morton [-V. 
E. Mem. 79] makesastatementalmostidentical with this ; 
from which Gammell and others, assuming the date of 
his return to Salem to have been in August, 1633, appear 
to have fixed upon August, 1634, as the time of ordination. 
But Backus \,Hist. N. Eng. i : 57] says ' " all agree that 
he was not ordained till after Mr. Skelton's death," 
which we know took place 2-12 Aug. 1634; and Hub- 
bard [:;o4] saysit was "after some time" subsequent to 
Mr. Skelton's death, that the Church called Mr. Wil- 
liams to office. Dr. Eentley [Description of Salem, etc. 
I Mass. Hist. Coll. vi : 247] indeed represents that "Mr. 
Skelton's sickness gave him [R. W.] an opportunity to 
renew his public labours in the pulpit, for the pastoral 
relation Juzd not been dissolved.'"'' But we have already 
seen \ante p. 5] the improbability that Mr. Williams was 
settled at S.-ilem before going to Plymouth; and, if he 
had been, the relation — by the strict construction of 
those days — would have been terminated by his de- 
parture. Itso happens that the most conclusive evidence 
exists not only that Mr. Williams was not ordained, as 
Mr. Gammell claims, in August, 1634, but that his 
ordination had not taken place at as late a period as in 
December of that year. There is among the British 
Colonial State Papers, a letter from Capt. James Cud- 
worth of Scituate to Dr. Stoughton, of Aldermanbury, 
London, dated *'Citewat the — of December, 1634," in 
whichi in giving an account of the ministers then labor- 



ing in the vicinity, he says: "at Salem theare Pastore 
old Mr. Skelton is ded ; theare Js Mr. Williames a/A^ 
doe exersies his giftesy hnt is in no office.'''' ^Colonial, 
viii : No. 39.] Being thus thrown wholly out of the old 
ruts of opinion as to this date, we are quite at liberty to 
look around for whatever hypothesis may offer most of 
probability. My notion is that where no Court records 
are available, W'inthrop's Journal always furnishes us 
the most trustworthy data for settling the early chronol- 
ogy of Massachusetts. His habits appear to have been 
methodical, and he was accustomed to jot down his 
memoranda of occiurences before time enough had 
elapsed to blur the exactness of memory ; so that it is 
not easy to believe in any essential error in the order of 
his records. His interest in topics of religious and 
patriotic moment was, moreover, such as to make it as 
difficult for us to think that he would overloolc, as that 
he would misplace the mention of any such. But we 
find no allusion, whatever, to any such event as Mr. 
Williams's ordination in the pages of Winthrop, until 
we get down to the date of S-18 July, 1635; where we 
are told that '* the other churches were about to write to 
the church of Salem to admonish him of these errors; 
notwithstanding, t/te church Jtad since called him to tlie 
office 0/ a teaclier.^^ \yournal, i: 162.] If lunderstand 
this language correctly, it indicates that the calling of 
Mr. W'illiams to be a teacher had taken place after the 
churches had commenced arrangements to labor with his 
church and with him. If so, that calling must have been 
after the early spring of 1635 [see p. 33 ante], and in all 
probability after the 30 April-S May of that year, or 
Gov. Winthrop woidd have referred to it in hisstatement 
of that date lyour/tai, i: 157]; for had such an event 
already happened, it seems almost incredible that ha 



h7l 



n.r !f th . r??r ^' ^^'P^^^t^^ that this high-handed course on the 
part of the church of Salem and its pastor, amounting to something very like 
open contempt of the public sentiment and feeling of the vast majority of the 
ables and best men in the colony, should go free of rebuke; and\ve are 
therefore prepared for the information which Governor Winthrop chives us of 
the citation of Mr. Williams to the General Court of 8-iS July ne"t succeed- 
ing, to answer to complaints made against him. It was natural also that the 
Court should, on this occasion, go more fully than before into the detail of 
his offensive teachings. It was laid to his charge, that he advocated opinions 
dangerous to the common welfare, viz. : '■'s 

1. That the magistrate ought not to punish the breach of the first tible i=' 
e-xcept when the civil peace should be endangered. 

2. That an oath ought not to be tendered to an unregenerate man 

3- That a man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, even though it be 
with his wife or child. 

4. That a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament, nor after meat. 



should make no allusion to it, there and then. Mr. 
Cotton says, moreover [/?<•//>' '» Hrr. Wmia,,,!, etc. 
29], lh.it the action of tlic Court about iho Marble- 
head land — to which «c shall soon come in the story — 
ti-as"soonc after" his settlement by ' ' the m.ijor part of 
the Church." But this action about the land took place 
apparently in July 1635 fWinthrops Journal, 164], so 
that if my idea that his ordination was in May or June of 
■63 Si he correct, Cotton's "soon after" would be ciact. 
^ The other circumstance above referred 10, is the ques- 
tion whether there was at this time any interference of 
the magistrates, to prevent the ordination, if possible. 
It is to be conceded that Mr. Collon IRef'ly, etc. 29] 
says there was: "The Magistrates discerning by the 
fonner passages, the heady and turbulent spirit of Mr. 
Williams, both thry, and others, advised the Church of 
Salem not to call him to office, etc." Cotton Mather 
also declares iMa^Mlia, Book vii: 7J: "the Govern- 
ment again renewed their Advice unio the People to 
forbear a thing of such ill Consequence;" and Hutch- 
inson [Itist. Mas!. 1 : 41] following Hubbard \Geit. Hist. 
N. ICng. 204] says as much. On the other hand, Win- 
throp — who surely must have known the fact, if any 
such action of the Government took place — says noth- 
ing about it, when there w^s every reason that ho should 
have done so, if such were the fact ; and wc find no 
sign of any action on the official records. It is my im- 
pression therefore that Cotton and Hubbard confujcd 
the interference of the elders and the other churclio-., 
which clearly did lake place, wHih interference by the 
Court J and that the only "interference" of which the | 



Court was guilty, was that afterward of adjudging hb 
ordination, under the circumstances of his attitude of 
hostility to them on the question of the Resident's Oath, 
and of the dealing of the other churches, to be "a great 
contempt of aulhority." [Winthrop's >«r««/, i : 163.] 
It is clear from Cotton iReply, etc. 4] ihat the action 
of the church was by no means unanimous. 
'^Winlhrop's 7o«>-jw/, i : 162. 

""This is the first time, since the spring of 1631, in 
the whole history thus far, that any hint is given that 
the doctrine of "soul-liberty" li.id anything to do with 
these disturbances. This B.ickus [Hist. N. Eng. i: 69] 
intcn^rets .as "denying the civil m.igistrale5 right to 
govern in ecclesiastical alTairs." Doubtless the charge 
might include some such denial. But Dr. Palfrey 
[ffist. N. Eng. 1: 407] fairly shows how much more than 
merely this was involved: "The 'first l.ible' of the 
Decalogue, consisting of the first four precepts, was 
understood to forbid four offences, idolatry, perjury, 
blasphemy and Sabbalh-breaking. Of these the last 
two stand as |K-nal offences on the statute-book of Mas- 
sachusetts at the present day ; the second, there is no 
government th.at docs not imnish; while, in the judg- 
ment of the age and the place now treated of, a dcni.il 
of the right to suppress idolatry, was a denial of the right 
to provide securities against an irruption of Romanism. 
It should not excite surprise that the magistrates thought 
it would be liaiardous to good government and the pub- 
lic peace to have their aulhorily in m-attcrs of such 
moment denounced, by a hot-headed young man, from 
the first pulpit of the Colony." 



[38] 



Earnest debate followed. The elders were called in to give the aid of their 
judgment. Mr. Williams seems not to have gained a single convert on the 
occasion; but all, magistrates and elders, with one accord, judged his posi- 
tions "to be erroneous, and very dangerous" ; while all was aggravated by the 
fact of his ordination in what looked like defiance of the reasonable protest 
of the ministers and churches, if not of the magistrates. All ended by 
requesting him, and his church, to take the whole matter into reconsidera- 
tion until the next General Court, to meet eight weeks thereafter ; with the 
understanding that unless the causes of complaint should by that time be 
removed, the Court must then be expected to take some final action thereon.^'**' 

It so happened, that at this same Court some reply was to be made to a 
petition which the Salem people had previously sent in, for the assignment to 
them of "the lande betwixte the Clifte and the Forest Ryver, neere Marble 
Head."^^ Considering the exasperation which was felt — and, I submit, nat- 
urally felt, by the tribunal — at the, as it seemed to it, seditious and harmful 
posture assumed by Mr. Williams ; aggravated by the almost scornful disre- 
gard, by his church, of the constitutional protests of the other churches, in 
sealing him, just at this time, to be their pastor, and thereby doing their 
utmost to endorse, dignify, and spread abroad principles advanced by him 
which appeared to the Court subversive of the very foundations of all govern- 
ment, and especially dangerous just at that time, because of the aid and com- 
fort given by them, on the one hand, to the factious element within the plan- 
tation, and, on the other, to their various enemies in England who needed 
just such arguments as Mr. Williams and his church were furnishing them, to 
succeed in crushing the Charter and destroying the plantation ; one feels no 
surprise whatever in learning that this petition was laid on the table for the 



'*° Gov. Winthrop appends here the statement that 
the elders were very decided in advising the Court, on 
this occasion, "that he wlio should obstinately main- 
tain such opinions (whereby a church might run into 
heresy, apostacy, or tyranny, and yet tlie civil magistrate 
could not intermeddle) were to be removed, and that 
the other churches ought to request the magistrates so 
to do." iyoiirnalj i: 163.] At first glance this looks 
very much like a conflict between the doctrine of tolera- 
tion on the one side, and its opposite on the other. Cut 
when it is remembered that by the fundamental law of 
the plantation, to be a churcli-member was to acquire 
eligibility to become a voter in the Slate ; it will be seen 
that in such an abnormal condition of affairs it must fair- 
ly be expected that the government, in granting to the 
churches such a privilege, would claim some correspond- 
ent right to insist that the churches should not ride rough- 



shod over the rights and privileges of the State. Or, to 
make the matter specific to the case in hand : the Court 
had said, for substance, that if a man joined the church 
in Salem he could have the accompanying privilege of 
becoming a freeman of Massachusetts. Hence it felt 
that it was no hardship, but a just and fair thing, that it 
should demand of the church in Salem not to admit to its 
communion men who would not themselves take, and 
who used all their influence to prevent others from tak- 
ing, those oaths by wliich alone the State could — under 
the pains and penalties of perjury — bind its citizens, 
and residents who were not its citizens, to a faithful and 
fruitful cooperation in its affairs, and to due obedience 
and subordination to its rule. So it seems to be very 
clear that the naked question of toleration was, after all, 
involved here but indirectly, if at all. 
"I Mass. Col. Rec. 1 : 147. 



[39] 



present, in order to see how all these things were to be finally adjusted."^ 
Salem people wanted from the Court the favor of the legal confirmation of a 
right which they claimed in this Marblehead Neck ; the government wanted of 
the Salem people the favor of a quiet and faithful submission to an existing 
order of things, which others (presumably as perspicacious and devout as 
Salem people) felt to involve no hardship to any reasonable conscience. Was 
it strange that the government should say, not in the way of threat or the 
mood of briber}^ but in the remembrance of v;hat was due to their own self- 
respect, and to the integrity of an imperilled sway: "we will wait before giv- 
ing answer to your request, until there shall be time to test more fully the 
quality of your allegiance to the power, w*hich you desire should be interposed 
on your behalf?'*''' 

Roger Williams was never the meekest and coldest of men. Nor had he 
reached his own maximum of these qualities, at the youthful period when tliese 
events occurred. This action of the Court kindled his indignation, and he 
lost no time in returning the blow which seemed to him to be struck at him, 
and his people, by this action of the magistrates. In the then inchoate con- 
dition of Church Polity in the Colony, the communion of the churches was 
largely exercised through what afterward came to be distinguished, in the 
Cambridge Platform, as the "Way of Admonition," ^^* Availing himself of 
this right, Mr. Williams procured the consent of his church to letters of 
admonition, written and sent by himself, in their name,'"*-^ to other churches of 
the plantation, admonishing them of the "heinous sin" ^^'^ thus committed by 
their members, the magistrates."^ Doubtless the most was made of the matter, 
and there may have been many different specifications of offence ; but the 



^*-\V\nlhrop*s you frrn/. \. 164. 

**^Prof. Knowlcs \_Memoir, 70] says: *' here is a can- 
did avowal that justice was refused to Salem, on a ques- 
tion of civil ri^lit, as a punishment for tlie conduct of the 
church and pastor. A volume could not more forcibly 
illustrate the danger of a connection between the civil 
and ecclesiastical power." Gov. Arnold \,I/ist. li. J. 
j: 3.1] calls this action of the Court " ihc punishment in- 
flicted upon the people of Salem for the alleged con- 
tempt of installing Roger Williams." It is safe to think 
th.il neither of theic inlcrcstin;; writers would have 
phrased matters lhu.% if ihcy had been living in Massa- 
chusetts to sec with their own eyes the events which they 
describe; or, if writing in the i>th ccntur\*, they could 
have succeeded in following ilic motto : " put yourself in 
his place," until it should have led them into the very 
midst of the 17th. 

"•CAtf/. xv: 3(3). 



1^^ Morton's .V. Eng. Mam. 79 ; Hubbard's Gctu 
!/isi. .V. En^. 20G. 

"■^ Hubbard (jo6) says " of sundry heinous offences," 
copying Morton's words exactly. Winihrop [/.jKr/i-i/, 
i : 164] says "of tliis as a heinous sin." 

'*' Winthrop seems to speak as if the deputies were 
included, as well as tlic Magistrates, but others do not 
mention them, nor is it certain that they had anything 
to do with the offence. If they had, all the churches 
would have been involved. If not, the churches would 
be the folIo\ving six, viz: Boston (Dcp. Gov. Bclling- 
ham, Winthrop, Coddington and H0U5I1); Krivtorvn 
\,Cambriiise\ (Gov. Ilayncs, Dudley and Ilradatrcct); 
CharUslown (Nowcll) ; Roxbury (Pynchon); Lynn 
(Humfrey); and Xc-.vbury (Dummcr). John Winihrop, 
Jr. {ffiswiih) was absent from the countrj*, and look 
DO part in the legitlalion of the year. [Afast. Coi, Rte* 



• [4o] 

gravamen of the chaise centered in the accusation of an open and scandalous 
transgression of the rule of justice in such a treatment of that petition ;^*^ and 
there is evidence that bitter, if not insulting, language characterized these 
epistles ;^" while the exact practical thing which they asked for, was that each 
of these churches should put its members, who as magistrates had been guilty 
of a share in this transaction, under tlie discipline of admonition therefor I ^'''^ 
In plain English, Roger Williams undertook, in the name, and by the authority 
of his church, to compel these churches to constrain their members who were 
magistrates, under penalty to vote to give Marblehead Neck to the people of 
Salem! That is, he sought to. use the machiner}^ of the Church, to secure a 
certain desired result in the State. What is sauce for the goose ought to be 
sauce for the gander; and by this action Mr, Williams debarred himself — 
and would debar his mode/n apologists and advocates, did they comprehend 
the facts, and exercise a |5erspicacity like his own in regard to them^ — -from 
all consistent objection to any mixture of action between Church and State, 
if any had been subsequently taken, as the result of what he thus had done. 

Much of Mr. Williams's previous teaching and conduct had tended toward 
sedition ; had manifestly cheered the enemies of good order in the plantation, 
and put arguments into the mouths of those who were seeking its ruin ; this 
had a look like open rebelHon'. This young man — not of age yet ten years ; 
not a freeman of the Company; unsettled in judgment; advocating one new 
scheme to-day and another to-morrow ; who did not believe their patent gave 
them a legal right to the soil which they occupied, or that any man's house 
thereon could be his own, who still owned a house which he claimed as his 
own ; w^ho had headed such an onset against the Company's right to adminis- 
ter an oath of fealty to those who yet claimed the protection of its laws, and 



'** Cotton Mather says, XMaziudiay Book \'ii: S] : ] all the Churches, whereof any of the Magistrates were 
' Mr. Williams Enchanis the Church to join with him in ' members, to admonish Ouir MiigistraUs of their breach 



Writing Letters of Admonition unto all the Churches 
whereof any of the Magistrates were Members, ihxt iht-y 
mi^ki A diKonish the Ma^siraia of Scattdalous Injus- 
tice for denyitig this PetiiioftJ" John Cotton says 
\Rep!yto Mr, JFUliams, etc., 29]: "to admonish ihem of 
their cfigH transgression of ike Rule of Justice " ," and 
Winthrop speaks of the letters as *" complaining of the 
magistrates for injiuiice, extreme oppression, etc" 
\yoTtrjiaI, i : 170]. 

**^The next General Court declared that in these let- 
ters the cliurch of Salem ""^ exceedingly reproched and 
viUifyedtJie mag^istrates, etcP \^Mass. CoL Rec.\\ 156.] 

'* This is clearly stated by John Cotton, writing with- 
in twel\-e years of the occurrence, [Reply ia Mr. WiU 
iiams,etc. 5] thus: *'in writing Letters of Admonition to 



if ifte rule of Justice, in not granting their Petition." 
Cotton Mather [as cited above, m7.V 14S,] repeats the 
statement ; which is indeed necessarily involved in all 
the testimony ; for of what \'alue could be any church 
dealing which should not result in some action, and in 
what way could these churches responsively act, unless 
by such dealing with the offenders as should repair the 
offence? Mr. Cotton h;rase".f returns to the subject in 
his Rcpfy, and more fu.ly explains the facts, as follows: 
"Mr. Williams witnesseth that in such a case the Church 
[whose town has petitioned for land, etc. ] whose Petition 
is so delayed, may write Letters of Admonition to all the 
Churches, whereof such Magistrates are members, to rt' 
quire tJiefn to grarUy 'soithcui delay ^ such Petiticms, or 
else to Proceed agaittst them in a Church-<tfay '* [p. 55]. 



[41] 

all the advantages of residents under it, as had almost compelled that wise 
and essential provision to drop into disuse ; this young man, who had so 
"enchanted"''^ the churcii in Salem as to persuade it to take him to be its 
pastor by formal rites, at the very moment when the other churches of the 
plantation were dealing with it in the endeavor to prevent such a step, and in 
cool defiance of their judgment and desire ; this young man was now under- 
taking to compel the magistrates to administer the civil government as he, 
and those under his influence, desired, under pain of church discipline — 
involving of course, as the Massachusetts system then was, the risk of excommu- 
nication (then carrying with it, as I suppose, the loss of civil rights) should they 
prove contumacious. John Haynes, Esq., had been chosen Governor for that year, 
and the contemplated administration of the affairs of the plantation for 1635, 
involved the cooperative action of Lieut. Governor Bellingham, with eight 
Assistants and from twenty to thirty Deputies ; but it Was really beginning to 
look as if the actual Governor of Massachusetts for the time being might 
prove to be Roger Williams, with the assistance of "the major part'"^-' of the 
church of Salem, and no deputies whatsoever ! 

The issue was squarely joined. But there could be essentially but one 
result of such a conflict. Either the Governor and Company of Massachusetts 
must abdicate in favor of this young Salem pastor, or he must abandon his 
preposterous endeavors, or take himself out of the way. And no man can 
reasonably claim that it would be presumable in such a case for the greater to 
yield to the less ; for nearly or quite five thousand Englishmen with more than 
five hundred freemen, with twelve churches, and from fifteen to twenty highly 
educated ministers, all sturdily engaged in pushing forward the heavy work of 
a plantation which included three or four thriving towns, with more than 
twenty hamlets, grouped around the shores of the Bay, and already stretching 
inland as far as Ipswich and Newbury on the north, and Weymouth and Hing- 
ham on the south, to surrender at discretion to the wild earnestness of a single 
visionary stripling, however finely endowed, with however much of method in 
his madness, and with however fervid a female following!'" 

The General Court did not meet again until September, so that assuming — 
as it is reasonable to think they did — that .Mr. Williams's letters in the name 
of his church went out quickly after the Court action which caused them, si.\ 
weeks or more would intervene between their reception by the churches, and 
any action of the authorities which might take influence from the public feel- 



"1 Magnaliat Book vii : 8. 

*** John Cotton's Kifily to Mr. WUtiatiu, etc. 29. 

'''These sutistica are estinuted from the Colony Rec- 



ords, and from Savage's Edition of Winihrop's Journal^ 
with tlic assistance of the tenth diapter of Dr. Palfrey's 
first volume. 



[42] 



ing in regard to them. It is not certain, indeed, that, in every instance, these 
letters reached the direct attention and action of the bodies to which they had 
been addressed. The churcli in Boston certainly did not at once come to the 
knowledge of theirs, for its elders sent a communication to the Salem church, 
of date 2 2 July-i Aug. 1635, in which they gave their reasons for not "seeing 
their way clear" to " pubhsh to the body" the Salem document. ^^^ Roger Wil- 
liams and Samuel Sharpe replied in the name of their church, endeavoring to 
show the insufficiency and inaptness of these reasons, and to persuade the 
Boston elders to deliver their "humble complaint" to the consideration of the 
body of their brethren.^^ It is quite possible that some of the churches had not 
yet reached the end of the friendly labor with the Salem church on which they 
had entered some time before Mr. Williams's ordination ; there is evidence 
that others utilized the interval before the General Court should reassemble, in 
the endeavor, by correspondence and personal intercession, to persuade Mr, 
Williams and his flock to retreat from their offensive and untenable position.^^^ 
Prominent among these were the two important churches of Boston and New- 
town [Cambridge]. ^^' Mr. Hooker and Mr. Cotton personally were very active 



^^ These reasons were three: (i)that the admonition 
of the Salem Clnirch was a "gift" which should not be 
offered until that church bad reconciled itself to the mag- 
istrates [with reference to Matt, v: 23,24]; (2) that the 
act of the magistrates was rather a private than a public 
offence ; and (3) that it \vzs not fitting to deal on the 
Lord's day in a worldly business, nor to bring a civil 
matter into the church. [See these reasons quoted, that 
they may be replied to, in a Letter of the elders of Salem 
Church, to elders of Boston Church, Publications qf the 
Narragapiseit Club, \\\ 71-77]. 

^'^^ Their reply to the third reason is characteristic. They 
first disclaim the "civil " aspect of the matter of their 
complaint altogether, referring to it only as it is a spirit- 
ual offence. Then they say: "again, we are not bold 
to limit you (our beloved) to the Lord's day; we leave it 
to your wisdom, and the wisdom of the church, when to 
consider of the matter; yet hitherto we have conceived 
that the kingly office of our Lord Jesus ought to be as 
well administered on the Lord's day as bis Priestly and 
Prophetic office ; and also that He is as much honored 
in the act of censuring or pardoning of sinners from his 
throne, Zach vi : 13, in case of transgression against 
His crown, as against the administration of other his 
sweet and blessed ordinances." [7^/^/, 76.] 

^^*'But to prevent his sufferings (if it might be) it was 
moovedbysomeof the Elders that themselves might have 
liberty (according to the Rule of Christ) to deale with him, 
and with the Church also in a Church-way. It might be the 
Church might heare us. and he the Church ; which be^ng 



consented to, some of our Churches wrote to the Church 
of Salem, to present before them the offensive Spirit and 
Way of their Officer (Mr. Williams) both in Judgement 
and Pi-actise." [Cotton's Reply to Mr. Williams^ etc. 
29.] "The neighboring Cliurches, both by Petitions 
and Messengers, took such Happy Pains with the Church 
of Salem, etc." [Ma^naiia, Book vii 8.] 

^^' Cotton's Re//y to Mr. IVilliajuSy 38. Morton 
[:V. Eng. Mem. S3] gives a copy of a portion of the 
" Writing" which was signed by John Cotton. Teacher ; 
and Thomas Oliver and Thomas Leveret, elders [the pas- 
tor, John W'ilson, being then "absent upon a voyage to 
England''], which was sent by the Boston church to the 
church at Salem. It recounts five specific ' ' Errours " in 
Doctiinc; the fifth of which is: "it is not lawful for 
Magistrates to punish the breaches of the first Table, 
unless thereby the Civill Peace of the Commonwealth 
be disturbed," from which it draws the inference that a 
portion of the Salem church held "that a Church whol- 
ly declining into Arianism, Papism, Familism, or other 
Heresies, being admonished, and convinced thereof by 
other Churches, and not reforming, may not be reformed 
by the Civil Magistrate in a way of Civil Justice unless 
it break the Civil Peace." This makes it probable that 
Williams had some disciples in Iiis views in regard to 
liberty of conscience, and that that subject did have a 
certain share in all these troubles ; while it does not de- 
monstrate that — except in the most general way — it had 
an>'thing to do with the action now soon resulting in liia 
banishment. 



[43] 



in laboring with Mr. Williams ; the latter subsequently calling him to witness 
to the fact thus : "he knoweth I spent a great part of the Summer in seeking 
by word and wntmg, to satisfie his scruples."'** '^' 

The result of all appears to have been to harden the purpose and judgment 
of the pastor, and to soften those of the majority of the church. That "Holy 
F ock, ,n Cotton Mather's stately phrase, was " presently recovered to a Sense 
of h.s Aberrations. '-» In Mather's maternal grandfather Cotton's milder way 
of putting It: "It pleased the Lord to open the hearts of the Church to assist us 
in dealing with him." '^ In plainest English, the churches of the Bay, so far from 
responding favorably to these admonitory letters, and proceeding to discipline 
heir magistrate-members for what had been done in laying on the table, for a 
time, the Salem petition in regard to the Marblehead land ; retorted in kind 
and commenced counter-labor with the Salem Church, and its minister for 
sending them such letters; for many of his teachings, and for other thiiUs • 
with the result of speedily winning to the view they took the majority of that 
church, and persuading it to unite with them in dealing with him. When Mr 
Williams comprehended this result, and saw that the majority of his own 
people had forsaken him ; were actually now ready to take sides with his oppo- 
nents ; and were even, in point of fact, about to commence church labor with 
him, m the endeavor to bring him to the abandonment of the advocacy of his 
peculiar views; he turned upon tiiem with a sudden -almost a fierce- 
denunciation. 

By one of those remarkable coincidences which deeply impress some minds 

SKr\'''/?'"r''''^'^™P'"'^''''^'^''^'" '""" ^"^1 nature, the Massachusetts 
babbathof the 16-26 August 1635, dawned upon a troubled world. All day 
long on Saturday the elemental forces had been raging up and down the New 
England coast, in a manner whose furious equal was not within the mem- 
ory, or the traditions, of the most venerable living Algonkin. It had been 
b ovvmg, through the whole previous week, almost a gale from a Southerly 
direction, when suddenly, on the morning of the is-^jth, a North-easter set 
m, witli torrents of rain, with a gusty violence which raised the tides by as 
many as twenty feet of perpendicular height, sending many of the Narra'an- 
setts into the trees to avoid drowning, which fate -flood-tide coming before 
the usual time-many did not escape; which foundered ships at sea, and 
stranded vessels anchored near the shore ; which prostrated many houses and 



■«^f//, ta Mr. irm,ams hU Exam., tic. ^,. 
"^ AAig-im/i'a, Book vii: «. 

'";?,//j. /<, Mr. Il^aiiams. .,c. 3,. Hubbard Mj-^ 
[Gf«. //«/. ,V. Eue. J06] "divcni of them Uwl joined 



with him in these Iciicrs, aftere-ards did acknowledge 
their error, and gave satisfaction." Morton [.V. E,,^. 
AUm. 79] says '•divers did acknowledge their error and 
gave satisfaction. " 



[44] 



unroofed many more ; which beat down flat the whole crop of Indian corn ; 
which twisted off tall, thrifty oaks, and tough hickories, as a farmer twists a 
slender withe in binding his rail-fence together, and snapped stately pines and 
goodly firs in the midst, and uprooted hundreds of thousands of forest trees; 
leaving the scar-marks of its desolation scored deep upon the fair face of the 
land, during a large portion of the half-century that followed. ^'^^ As the Salem 
congregation picked their devious way on that Sabbath morning, between the 
pools, and among the gulleys, and over the broken branches, and around the 
prostrate trees, and fragments of dwellings and fences which cumbered the 
rude and narrow ways, to their humble meeting-house,-"*- they did not find Mr. 
Williams in the pulpit. It is quite likely that most of them did not expect to 
see him there, having heard that he was sick. The elder, Samuel Sharpe, 
it is to be inferred, conducted the service.^'^ And, as one part thereof, he read 
a letter from the pastor. It had been doubtless written while the storm had 
been raging on the Saturday, and — whether in language or not — in spirit it 
/ was as tempestuous as the day of its birth had been. It was a solemn 
protestation. He had made up his mind fully. He could hold Christian 
communion with the churches of the Bay no longer. They were unclean by 
. idolatrous pollutions. They were defiled with hypocrisy and worldliness. They 
needed cleansing from anti-Christian filthiness and communion with dead 
works, dead worships, dead persons in God's worship. They ought to loathe 
themselves for their abominations, and stinks in God's nostrils (as it pleaseth 
God's Spirit to speak of false worships) ; for they were false worshipers of 
the true God, liable to God's sentence and plagues ; guilty of spiritual drunk- 
enness and whoredom, of soul-sleep and soul-sickness, in submitting to false 
churches, false ministry, and false worship. They were ulcered and gangrened 



^"^ Winthrop's yournal,\'. 164; Morton's A". E/tg. 
Metn. 94; Hubbard's Gen. Hist. N. Eitg. igg. This 
was the storm whicli Richard Mather mentions in his 
Journal, which came upon his ship when it was at an- 
chor off the Isles of Shoals ; and the same in which, by 
the breaking up of a pinnace of Mr. Allertou's off 
Gloucester, the Rev. Jolin Avery was drowned, with 
twenty others ; only Rev. Anthony Thacher and his 
wife being saved, by being cast up upon wlrat has hence 
always since gone by the name of Tliacher's Island. 
[See J/rt§-«rt//rt, Book iii: 77; Mather's 7(»«r«(z/, and 
Thacher's Narrative in Young's Chronicles 0/ Massa- 
chusetts^ 473-486.] Joshua Scottow, [Narrative of the 
Planting of the Mass. Col., 4 Mass. Hist. Coll. iv: 29] 
calls it "an Hurricane before, or since, not known in 
this Country." Winthrop says, "it was not so far as 
Cape Sable, but to the South more violent." 



^*'- From 1629 to 1634, the church had met for worship 
in an unfinished building. In 1634 a framed house was 
erected, 20 feet long and 17 feet wide, with a gallery 
across the end over the door. It was four years before 
a bill was paid for glazing it, so that most likely oiled 
paper at first served instead of glass in the windows. It 
is a remarkable fact that this building still essentially ex- 
ists, having been ten years since reclaimed from some 
base use ; removed to the rear of Plummer Hall, and 
there renovated and restored, to be handed down as a 
sacred relic to the far future. [Hist. Coll. Essex In- 
stitttte^ ii; 145-14S; vii: 116-11S.] 

1*^ Samuel Sharpe was at this time Ruling Elder of 
the church, and his name appears as signed, with Mr. 
Williams's, to the letter which had a little while before 
been sent to the Boston Church. \^Ptib. Narragansett 
Club, vi : 77.] 



[45] 



with obstinacy. Their ministry was false, and a hireling ministry. Their doc- 
trines were corrupt. They were asleep in abundant ignorance and negligence, 
in gross abominations and pollutions ; which the choicest servants of God, and 
most faithful witnesses of many truths, were living in, more or less. And the 
breath of the Lord Jesus was sounding forth in him (a poor despised ram's 
horn) the blast, which in His own holy season should cast down the strength 
and confidence of all these inventions of men, in the worshiping of the true 
and living God. Solemnly he gave his testimony against those churches; 
solemnly he separated from them as unworthy to be fellowshiped as true 
churches of the living God. He should communicate with them no more. 
And, further, he should communicate with theyn, to whom his letter was 
addressed, no more ; unless they were prepared to follow whither now he led, 
and renounce Christian communion with all other professing followers of God 
in the Massachusetts Colony!"'' 

This was explicit, as well as emphatic ; but " the whole church was "-rieved 
herewith!"'" " 

Subsequent reflection did not, on either side, essentially modify this condi- 
tion of affairs. The great majority of the church remained firm in their 
refusal to separate from their sister churches of the Bay ; by and by humbling 
themselves before their brethren who had admonished them, acknowledging the 
justice of the admonition, and confessing the faults into which Mr. Williams 
had led them.'"' A few — "divers of the weaker sort," who "had been throu<^h- 



""VVinlhrop [Journal, i: i66]; Morton [.V. Eng. 
Mtm. 80]; and Hubbard {Gen. Hist. N. Eiig. :o6J ; 
who docs little more than copy Morton, arc the direct 
authorities for the nature of this communication of Mr. 
Williams. Neither of them gives more than the sub- 
stance of it. I have thought that I could not go uTong 
in endeavoring a little more fully to reproduce it, if I 
scrupulously made use of Mr. Williams's own langu.igc 
elsewhere employed (and preserved) in regard to the 
same subject. .Vll the epithels, and the invectives, given 
.ibove, arc scattered through his little tractate entitled 
Mr. Collon'i Letlcr,lalely friiUed, Examinedand An- 
sitvred. ISec pp. 5, 9, 12, 18, 20, 27, jq, 30, 33, 3.,, 35, 
38.] Even Mr. Knowlcsisconstrained to admit as much 
as this, here : "in this conduct he was doubtless wrong, 
yet who will venture to say, that if he had been placed 
in the situation of Mr Williams, he would have main- 
tained a more subdued spirit " [Affiiioir, 71.] 

'"Sosays Winthrop [7<7»rna/i: 166). Morton 5.15.5 
UV. Eng. Mem. So], "the more prudent and sober part 
of the Church, being amazed at his way, could not yield 
unto him." Kubbard again repeats Morton. 

'■'■•Winlhrop [7o«r/M/ i: 171 J. Cotton says [Lel- 



Ur to Mr. WiUlams, London 16.13], that he has lit- 
tle hope that the m,in will hearken to his voice " lulio 
luith not hearkened to the body 0/ the -.vliole Church of 
Christ with you, etc." [p. 1]; implying, of course, the 
charge that the great m.ajorily, at least, of the cliurcli. 
did not sympathize with Mr. Williams; but h.id labored 
with him to change his course. To which Mr. Wil- 
liams, in his reply, [Mr. Cotton's Letter Examinedand 
Atmuered, London 1644] concedes: "in my troublesthe 
greater fart of that Church ^uits swayed and bowed 
(whclhcr for feare of persecution or otiiertvisc) to say 
and practise what, to my knowledge, with signes [sighs?] 
and groans many of them mourned under," (p. 2]. 
Cotton says, in replication [Kefly to Afr. U'il.'i.ims, 
his Examination, etc. 38J: "the issue was when the 
church of New Toivue, with our ownc, and others, 
had endeavoured to convince both Sfr. Williams of 
these olTences, ami the Church of Salem of their indul. 
gent toleration of him therein ; it pleased the I-ord 
!•> oi>cn the hearts of the Church to .assist us in dealing 
with him: but he, instead of hearkening either to them 
or 11.S renounced us all as no churches of Christ ; and 
therefore not at all to be hearkened unto." 



[46] 



ly leavened with his Opinions, of which number were divers women that were 
zealous in their way-'"'" — by degrees fell off to him. Mr. Williams himself 
was as good as his word. He seems never to have entered the meeting-house 
again. He gathered the skirts of his garments close about him, that they might 
not be defiled even in Salem ; renouncing communion with all the churches, 
and with his own church, and with all who would not renounce communion 
with his own church ; insomuch that he would neither pray with his own wife at 
the family altar, nor give thanks in her presence to God for food upon the fam- 
ily table, so long as she persisted in attendance upon the church assembly ! '^ 
He opened a "pure" service on Sundays, and lecture-days, in his own house j'®" 
in the way of separation from, testimony against, and opposition to, the services 
of the church of which he was still the ordained pastor. 

Two Sabbaths — most likely of this separate service — intervened between 
that stormy one which followed the storm, and the reassembling of the Court ; 
— long time enough to develop the spirit and intentions of this impetuous 
young enthusiast, and to suggest the probabilities of the results of the course 
which he had elected to take. It is easy to believe that the tidings of what was 
thus happening in Salem, was, during that fortnight, pretty thoroughly noised 
abroad, and that any excitement formerly existing, was in no way soothed, or 
quelled, by the news. When the Court met at Newtown, on Wednesday 2-12 
September, there was, however, no unseemly haste manifested in approaching 
the subject. Nothing whatever was done about it on the first day of the ses- 
sion. On Thursday the fact was recognized that the Salem church, by its let- 
ters to the other churches of endeavor to admonish them into direct ecclesiasti- 
cal interference with the civil government for its course in reference to the 
Marblehead land, had indicated an insubordinate, not to say a rebellious, spirit, 
which called for inquiry if not for rebuke ; and the three Deputies of the town, 
Capt. William Traske, and Messrs. John Woodberry and Jacob Barney, were 
sent home to the freemen whom the}' represented ; who were, of course, so far 



•I!' Morton's ;V. Ensr- Mem. So. 

^•^Wintlirop's yonriialf i: 175; Morton's .V. Ert^. 
Mem, 80; Hubbard's Gen. Hut. N. Eng. 207. Cot- 
ton says, \Reply to Mr. IViiiiams, etc. 30]: "Soone 
after sundry began to resort to his Family, where he 
preached to them on the Lord's day." Cotton Mather 
says : "His more considerate Church not yielding to 
these lewd Proposals, he never would come to their 
Assemblies any more ; no, nor hold any Communion in 
any Exercise of Religion with any Person, so much as 
his o\vn Wife, that went unto their Assemblies ; but at 
the same time he kept a Meeting in his own House, 



whereto resorted such as he had infected with his Ex- 
travagances" lMag»a/ta, Book vii : S]. Cotton adds 
[Kefily, etc. 9]: "which occasioned him for a season to 
withdraw communion in spiritual duties even from her 
[his wife] also, till at length he drew her to partake with 
him in the errour of liis way. " 

^''^ It seems to have been Mr. Williams's practice, dur- 
ing his ministry in Salem, to "exercise" during the week 
remarkably for those days. In speaking of his various 
labors, he says that they were "on the Lord's dayes, and 
thrice a -zueek at Salem." [Mr. Cotton^s Letter Ex- 
aminedt etc. 13.] 



[47] 



as they went, (all freemen being church-members, though all church-members 
were not freemen) identical with the offending parties ; to procure some satis- 
factory explanation of those letters; or, if none were to be had, to report to the 
Court the names of such Salem citizens as endorsed that offensive procedure.'™ 
It has been usual to stigmatize this action as a tyrannical endeavor on the 
part of the Court to punish the Salem church, and compel the Salem people to 
take sides against Mr. Williams, on pain of losing their common civil rights.'"' 
But it is my impression that what was really done has been overstated. It will 
be remembered that Mr. Williams, his church consenting and coacting, had dis- 
tinctly accused the General Court of " heinous sin " in laying on the table the 
Marblehead petition ; and had deliberately demanded of the several churches 
of which its members were members, that they enter upon a course of discipline 
with those deputies, for that great moral wrong ; and that this demand had 
been couched in language which seemed to the Court most unexampled and 
offensive. It could hardly be expected that on its first reassembling that body 
should take no notice of this remarkable, and — if we put ourselves into their 
place, we shall perhaps be able to think — perilous procedure. The very least 
which, with self respect, it could do, would be to demand the justification, or 
withdrawal, of those letters. It did that very thing, emphasizing its demand by 
bidding the three Salem Deputies to go home and carry it, in place of raising 
any other committee, or trusting to letter, when as yet there was no post.'" It 
is particularly noticeable, on the face of the transaction, that the Court order 
enjoining this, is radically different in terms from those usual when Deputies 
were unseated. Mr. John Humfrey, in 1629, had been "discharged of his 
Deputj'-shipp." '" Of Mr. William Aspinwall, in 1637, it was said : "theCourt 
did discharge him from being a member thereof; '"'^ and, at the same time, Mr. 
John Coggeshall was "in like sort dismissed from being a member of the 
Courte."'" In 1638 Ralfe Mousall, "being questioned about speaches, etc.. 



''"Mait. Cot. Rec. i: 156. 

*"* Ellon [L//iff aS] cills it "an atrocious violation of 
their rights," and talks about "the inquisitorial spirit 
of that tribunal." Knowlcs [Jf^mtr/r, 7ijstyle5 it "pun- 
ishinf; with ri(;or"lhc Salem people. Gammctl {Li/c^ 
46] terms it "disfranchisement." And Arnold \llist. 
K. /. i : 35] names these "arbitrary me.xsiircs," and 
says the Court "disfranchised the Salem deputies" ; 
which it surely did not do. .13 they remained as fully 
freemen of the company after the vote, as before. 

'■'The first symptom of public provision for the car- 
ri:ij;c of letler% which I h.ive found, is the order of 5-151!! 
Nov. 1639, making Richard Fairbanks's hou.se in Bos- 
ton the place where letters were to be left for forwarding 
over sea. or were to be delivered by incoming shijis, he to 



have a penny a letter for taking care "that they bee 
delivered, or sent, according to their directions. " t-'^*^'- 
Cot. Rec. i ; 281.] It was not until June 1677, that any 
symptoms of a Post Office appear {Ibid, v : mS]; and not 
until Nov. 16.^7, that a post seems to have been established 
between Boston and Connecticut. ^Conn, Cot. Rec, iii; 
393. 398-1 

*"' Afass. Cot. Rcc. i : 70. 

*'* tdid, i ; 205. 

^''•Itfid. In September 163^ when the new town of 
" Waimoth *' had sent three Deputies to the Court, when 
so small a low*n was entitled to only one, "at the re- 
quest of the s.iid Deputies, two of them were disinised 
by Court, viz; Mr. Bursley & John Vph-tm." {Ibid^ 
i: 179.) 



[48] 



was dismissed from being a member of the Courte." "^ Such, if I mistake not, 
was the invariable formula of record ; '" while disfranchisement, (that is, the tak- 
ing away from a freeman of his right of membership in the Massachusetts Com- 
pany) was much more than this ; and, as in the case of Aspinwall and Cogges- 
hall above named,''^ was effected lay a separate vote. But the Court did not 
"discharge" Traske, Woodberry, and Barne}', "from being members thereof;" it 
did not " dismiss " them ; it simply ordered that they "shalbe sent backe to the 
ffreemen of their towne that sent them, to fetch satisfaccon for their lettres, etc., 
or els the arguments of those that will defend the same, etc." So far from 
there being any hint in this language that the Deputies were not expected to 
return, or that they would not be entitled to their seats again when they should 
return ; they are expressly directed to "fetch " either an acknowledgment for, 
or a vindication of, the letters which were the ground of offence. I cannot help 
thinking that this formal and conspicuous sending home upon a mission which 
involved return, was all that was in the mind of the Body when passing the 
order, or that could legitimately stand upon the terms employed. 

But a scene of excitement followed. Endecott was present. It is not clear 
in what capacity he could be there, because in the previous May, he had been 
expressly " disinabled for beareing any office in the Commonwealth, for the 
space of a yeare nexte ensueing," ^'^ for cutting the cross out of the king's flag. 
He was a man whose impetuous temper more than once involved him in serious 
trouble ; and he seems on this occasion to have lost his self-control and stormed 
suddenly and violently against the course which matters had taken, until the 
Court, incensed beyond endurance, retorted, by directing " by generall ereccon 
of hands," that he be committed for contempt. It does not appear, however, 
that he actually went to jail ; as, at a later hour, "upon his submission and full 
acknowledgement of his offence, he was dismissed."'** But further on in the rec- 
ord of the same day's session we find a supplementary order of the Court, to the 
effect that " if the major part of the ffreemen of Salem shall disclame the lettres 
sent lately from the Church of Salem to severall churches, it shall then be law- 
full for them to send Deputyes to the Generall Court ; " "*' which looks like a move- 



^'^Ibitly i: 236. 

*~ Notice the s.ime term employed some years after, 
when the Deputy of Hingham was allowed at his own 
request, and for his own convenience, to give up his 
seat. [/*;■(/, ii: 25S.] 

^'^ Ibid, i: 207. 

™Ii!d,\: 146. Gammell [Life, 46] calls Endecott 
*'the principal De/^tityy He had been an Assistant 
before his dej;radation from office. Elton [Afer/toir, 2S] 
repeats the same blunder. 



^^liiid, i: 157. I am aware that Winthrop [yOT/rwa/ 
i: 166] says "for which he was committed; but, the 
same day, he came and acknowledged his fault and was 
discharged ; " but that may merely mean that he was 
'"committed" so far as the order of the Court went. 
He who " stands committed " is as fairly spoken of in 
that manner after sentence has been pronounced, before 
leaving the Court room, as he could be after the cell- 
door has been locked upon him. 

•"/3i^, i: 153. 



[49] 

ment, prompted by the heat of the fire which Endecott had kindled, to get into 
a postscript an important modification of the tone of an epistle, or to stiffen a 
will by a codicil. It may be questioned whether, if Endecott could on this occa- 
sion have exercised the grace of silence, any clause implying the termination 
of the official life of the Salem Deputies, would have found place upon the rec- 
ord of that day's doings. 

The most noticeable feature, however, of this session of the Court, is that 
although more than eight weeks before the date of its assembling Mr. Williams 
had been charged to " consider of" the "erroneous and very dangerous " opin- 
ions which he had avowed, until it should meet ; and had been cited then to 
appear before it to " give satisfaction, or else to e.\pect the sentence ; " and 
although this consideration instead of reducing him to penitent inoffensive- 
ness had goaded him on to new outbreaks of the most exasperating character ; 
still no mention whatever of his name appears in connection with it. Possibly 
he was still sick, or again sick. But had that been the case, in all likelihood, 
Mr. Winthrop would have noted the fact in his Journal. So that, when we find 
the Court adjourning, after a two days' session, to " tlie Thursday after the next 
Particular Court ";'^- which would carry them, over an interval of exactly five 
weeks, to the 8-18 October; and — even in all the heat of the three Deputies' 
ejection, and of Endecott's "committal" — saying nothing about the head and 
front of all, but leaving him to try his conscientious experiments of anarchy in 
Church and State for another month unmeddled with ; I conceive that we dis- 
cover, in place of a pack of legal hounds thirsting for the blood of a victim 
after whom they have been for months pressing in full cry, the calm, deliberate, 
and even noticeably lingering, processes of an anxious, conscientious, yet 
reluctant, tribunal. 

I am not aware of much light from any quarter upon this five weeks" interval, 
by which we may see with any minute accuracy what Mr. Williams, or his 
church, were doing. We can infer that new excitement would inevitably follow 
the Court action in reference to Mr. Endecott and the Deputies. It is easy to 
guess that those members of the church who had already committed themselves 
against Mr. Williams, would be tempted to great exertions in the endeavor to 
bring others to think with them ; while his separate service, aided by his 
marked popular ability, would more and more influence all whose preposses- 
sions were in the direction he had taken. So that, beyond question, the ex- 
citement must daily have increased, rather than diminished. Hubbard says : 



'"Thpncxt P.irlicul.ir Court met on Tuc«iay 6-i6lh I ^^^r. i; 162.] The Thursday follnwing would be, of 
October, at New Town, that is, Cambridge. [Affitt, Cot. ' course, the S-i8th. 



[5o] 

"things grew more and more towards a general division, and disturbance."'*' 
As the day of the adjourned meeting of the Court approached, it is clear that 
this subject largely occupied men's minds, and was especially upon the con- 
science of those by whose final action it must be determined.'^'' 

Let us here endeavor some clear idea as to what, precisely, was this " Create 
and Generall Court," whose session was to end all this. The Charter — and I 
again beg the reader to remember that it was, as yet, the charter of a company, 
and not of a commonwealth ; and that the said charter expressly styled the 
body the ''Greate and Generall Conrt of the saide Company"^^ — made provision 
that there should be " one Governor, one Deputy Governor, and eighteene 
Assistants," " to be from tyme to tyme constituted, elected, and chosen out of 
the freemen of the saide Company," etc.'"^ It further provided that four times 
in each year a General Court should be held, when " the Governor, or, in his 
absence, the Deputie Governor, of the saide Company for the tyme being, and 
such of the Assistants and freemen of the saide Company as shalbe present, or 
the greater nomber of them soe assembled, whereof the Governor or Deputie 
Governor, and si.x of the Assistants, at the least to be seaven, shall have full 
power and authoritie to choose, nominate, and appointe " new freemen, to elect 
officers, and " to make lawes and ordinances for the good and welfare of the 
saide Company, and for the government and ordering of the said landes and 
plantacon, and the people inhabiting, and to inhabite the same, as to them from 
tyme to tyme shalbe thought meete,"'*'' the same not being repugnant to the 
laws of England. When these provisions of the Charter came to be applied 
on the ground to the practical exigencies of the life of the young plantation, 
some modifications were found expedient. The number of Assistants yearly 
chosen was reduced to eight — two more than the number necessary, with the 
presiding officer, to make a quorum. These met often as a " Particular " Court, 
or Court of Assistants, or Magistrates, to adjudicate upon matters of organiza- 



"^^ Gen. Hist. N. Eng, 207. 

'** Mr. Colton says that one of the magistrates of 
Boston, who w.as to attend the Court, asked him what 
he thought of the whole matter as it then stood. He 
repHed: "I pitie the man, and h.ave already interceded 
for him, whilcst there was any hope of doing good. But 
now, he having refused to heare both his own Church, 
and us, and having rejected us all as no Churches of 
Christ, before any conviction [that is, on his own indi- 
vidual assumption, without any orderly trial of such a 
charge, issuing in conviction], we [that is, the elders, in 
whose name — see note 127 — Mr. Cotton had a year 
before interposed] have now no more to say in his 
behalfe, nor hope to prevaile for him. Wee have told 



the Govemour and Magisti^tes before, that if our Labour 
was in vaine, wee could not helpe it, but must sit downe. 
• And you know they are generally so much incensed 
against his course, tliat it is not your voyce, nor the 
voyces of two, or three more, that can suspend the Sen- 
tence. Some further speech I had with him of mine 
own marvell at the weaknesse and slendernesse of the 
grounds of his [Mr. W.'s] opinions, motions and courses, 
and yet earned on with such vehemency, and impetu- 
ousnesse, and prefidence [previous confidence] of Spirit" 
\Reply to Mr. Williams^ s ExaminatiotL, etc. 39.] 

^^'Mass. Col. Rec. i : 11. 

^^ Ibid^ i: 10. 

™ Ibid, i: II. 



[50 

tion, criminal and civil jurisprudence, probate and police.'*' Then, as the num- 
ber of freemen became largely increased, in the spring of 1634 it was arranged 
that the freemen of each town should have the right to choose two or three of 
their number to be their Deputies, who should take from those sending them 
full power to perform in their stead all their proper functions ; except in the 
election of Magistrates and other officers.'*^ So that the General Court which 
met at New Town on the 8-18 Oct , 1635, was made up of the Governor, Dep- 
uty Governor, eight Assistants and — there being now ten towns to send Depu- 
ties — from twenty- five to twenty-eight Deputies. The names of those having 
the right to be present are easily identified.™ John Haynes of New Town, who 
had been an opulent land-holder in Essex, was Governor. Richard Belling- 
ham of Boston ; bred a lawyer, and who had been Recorder of Boston in 
Lincolnshire, was Deputy Governor. John Winthrop, Atherton Hough (who 
had been Mayor of Boston on the Witham), and William Coddington (Treas- 
urer) of Boston ; Simon Bradstreet of New Town ; Thomas Dudley of Rox- 
bury ; Increase Nowell of Charlestown; John Humfrey of Lynn, and Rich- 
ard Dummer of Newbury, were the eight Assistants. Leaving out the three 
Salem men, whose status was now something more than doubtful, there remained 
twenty-five Deputies, from nine towns, to wit : John Talcott, John Steele and 
Daniel Dennison of New Town ; Richard Brown, Ensign William Jennison, 
and Edward Howe of Watertown ; William Hutchinson, William Colburn, and 
William Brenton of Boston ; Dr. George Alcock, John Mood\-, and William 
Park of Ro.xbury ; John Mousall, Thomas Beecher and Ezekiel Richardson of 
Charlestown ; Nathaniel Duncan, Captain John Mason, and William Gaylord 
of Dorchester; Joseph Metcalf, Humphrey Bradstreet and William Bartholo- 
mew of Ipswich ; Captain Nathaniel Turner, Edward Tomlyns and Thomas 
Stanley of Lynn ; and John Spencer of Newbury. 

It would probably be safe to assume, from the felt importance of some of the 
business to come before the Court, and the extent of the public interest in the 
same, that all, or nearly all, of these gentlemen were present. 

Anxious for the benefit of the utmost available light upon a question per- 
plexing in proportion to the magnitude of the various issues seen to be 
involved, the Court had again invited "all the ministers in the Bay"'"' to 
attend, for consultation with them on this occasion. There were, at that time, 
within the limits of the Massachusetts plantation, ten churches in full working 



"< P.-llfrey'9 Hilt. A'. Eng. i: 325. I "«;»&«. Col. Rtc. i: 156. 

^^ Mast. Col. Rec. x: 118. ' ••' Winthrop's 7<7i(rMa/, i : 170. 



[52] 



condition,^^ having among them fifteen pastors and teachers. In the order in 
which they were formed, those churches were, and were at this time officered, 
as follows ; Sale^n, Roger Williams ; Dorchester, John Warham and John Mav- 
erick ; Boston, John Wilson and John Cotton ; Watertown, George Phillips ; 
Roxbury, Thomas Welde and John Eliot ; Lynn, Stephen Bachiler ; Charles- 
town, Thomas James; New Town, [Cambridge], Thomas Hooker and Samuel 
Stone ; Ipswich^ Nathaniel Ward ; and Newbury, Thomas Parker, and James 
Noyes. It is possible that the two last named, who were, as yet, fresh from 
their consecration under the " majestic oak " of Quascacunquen}'^^ and who then 
were, and, as is well known, remained, in some slight want of ecclesiastical 
harmony with their brethren in the Bay, might not have been present ; proba- 
bly there had hardly yet been time to count them fairly in to the older com- 
pany. Since Winthrop notes the absence of no other one — as, in a somewhat 
similar previous case, he had done^^ — I incline to think that the remaining 
twelve were there.^^ Nine of these we know to have been graduates of Cam- 
bridge University.-*^^ Nine of them we know to have held rectorships — some 
of them positions of exceptional importance — in the father-land.^''' Thomas 
Hooker, in addition to his experience in the ministry in Essex, and on the Con- 
tinent, had taught a school at Little Baddow, where John Eliot had acted as his 
assistant.^^ Three of them must Iiave worn that crown of glory which the way 
of righteousness puts upon the hoary head/^ Five, at least, of their juniors 
were in the fullest maturit}' of manly strength.^ While the remaining four, if 
young enough to come into special sympathy with the fendd zeal of the man 
whose peculiarities had called them together, were also old enough to have 
outgrown, perhaps, some of his crudities.^^ Altogether.it was a distinguished 



^^2 As has been before remarked [p. 41] there were 
twelve churdies actually existing ; one having been 
formed at Weymouth in the previous July, and one at 
Hingham in tlie previous September. But these were 
hardly yet fully organized, the latter, certainly, not as 
yet having any pastor. 

^f^^Coffin's HUt. Ne'wbttryy 9, 17. 

'^^Jountal.i i. 154. 

^^^There would be t\velve without Mr. Williams. 

'^"These were Wilson, Cotton, Hooker, Stone, Welde, 
Ehot, Phillips, James and Ward. Of Bachiler, War- 
ham and Maverick, we lack details. Parker and Noyes 
had both studied .^t Oxford. 

''•'" Cotton had been beneficed at Boston, Lincolnshire ; 
Warham, at Exeter, Devon ; Wilson, at Sudbury, Suf- 
folk; PhilHps, at Boxted, Essex; Weld, at Terling, 
Essex ; Hooker, at Chelmsford, Essex, and afterwards 
at Delft and Rotterdam ; Ward, at St. James's, Dukes 



place, London, and afterwards at Stondon Massey, 
Essex; Maverick, at some place about forty miles from 
Exeter, and James somewhere in Lincolnshire. 

"^^ Magttalia^ Book iii: 59. 

^^° Bachiler must have been now about 74 (I know his 
character was much spoken against, and there were 
unfortunate facts in his history; yet the obvious confi- 
dence of good men in him inspires in my mind the hope 
that his way, on the whole, was one of righteousness) ; 
Ward was not far from 65, and Maverick near 60. 

'^^ Cotton was about 50, Hooker perhaps a year 
younger, Wilson 47, and Phillips and James each not far 
from 42. 

-*^^ Eliot, who was but 32, seems to have been the 
youngest. Stone was 35, while Weld and Warham, 
whose birth-dates have not, to my knowledge, been 
identified, would, from various circumstances, appear to 
have been at this time between 30 and 40. 



[53] 



company ; and it may well be doubted whether the Massachusetts of to-day, — 
even under the classic shades of that great university which makes the spot 
where this Court was held now almost as well known to the learned world as 
is that ancient shrine of knowledge whose scholastic robes so many of them 
were entitled to wear — could call together, out of its hundreds of pulpits, twelve 
pastors and teachers who should be their equals in intellect and worth, and in 
all those imperial qualities which fit men to be the founders of States. 

It has been the habit of a certain class of writers to regard, and speak of, the 
trial of Mr. Williams at this time thus before the General Court in the presence 
of these ministers, as affording an odious instance — in its worst form — of the 
coworking of Church and State. Even the accomplished historian of Rhode 
Island, to whom I have already more than once referred, sees in it : " a practi- 
cal commentary on the danger of uniting the civil and ecclesiastical adminis- 
trations. It suggests the reflection that, of all characters, the most danger- 
ous and the most despicable, is the political priest."*'- But I submit — with all 
respect — that there was here, strictly, neither Church nor State. There was, on 
the one hand, the board of directors and managers of a great trading and land 
company, administering the affairs of their corporation, and in so doing grow- 
ing insensibly to be a commonwealth, assembled to consider whether a per- 
son — whom, for many of his qualities and much of his influence, they respected 
and esteemed ;^' who was not a member of the company, but, though holding 
land by their grant, was living among them on sufferance ; who had formed the 
opinion that th^ir charter was invalid, and that they had no right to their terri- 
tory ; that they had no authority to govern, no warrant to administer the judicial 
oath whether for civil cohesion, to secure the ends of justice, or as a safeguard 
against insubordination ; that tlieir churches were standing on an unauthorized 
basis ; and so that their procedure in every department, and on all subjects, 
was null before the law, and reprehensible before the gospel ; and who scrupled 
not, in the face of all their endeavor, to advocate and push these opinions in a 
way which, in the perilous juncture of affairs at home, threatened the very exist- 
ence of the plantation — could be safely allowed longer to remain among them? 
And there was, on the other hand, invited by a body impressed with the 
gravity of the occasion, and because they were at once their best educated and 
wisest men, and the peers of the offending elder — gathered in no ecclesiastical 



«" Arnold's Hut. R. I.\: jS. 

3*^ NotliinK is more noticciblc in all this history (h.in 
the kindncs.% of feeling wliich, in the midst of and in spile 
of All the trouble. %vas m.inifcsted toward Mr. Williams. 
KduwIcs says: "it is due to tlic principal actors in 



these scenes, to record the fact, of which ample evidence 
exists, that personal animoMty had little, if any, share 
in producing the sentence of banishment. Towards Mr. 
Williams, .IS a Christian and a minister, there was a 
general sentiment of re5|»ect.'* (iVrfww/r, 7S. ] 



[54] 



fashion, and for no ecclesiastical end, but as experts in the moral and relig- 
ious bearing of the matters in dispute — the body of the remaining pastors and 
teachers of the plantation, to give their advice as amici curia:. And this was all. 

The rising sun of Thursday, the 8-18 October, 1635, doubtless found the 
majority of these thirty-five laymen and twelve ministers, with whoever had 
special occasion to be present with them at the Court, heading for New Town 
along the field and forest paths which converged thither.^ Edward Converse 
must have driven a thriving business with his "fferry betwixte Charlton & 
Boston, for which he had ij'' for evy single pson, & i* a peece if there be 2 or 
more ; " *^ inasmuch as the travel from Boston to New Town then took that 
way. Roger Williams made from twelve to fourteen miles of it from Salem to 
the Court, of which he afterwards complained as a cause of his ill health. -''° We 
do not know at what hour the session cornmenced, but it was no doubt at 
one sufficiently late to make it possible for those living within from five to ten 
miles to reach the spot without serious inconvenience ; and sufficiently early to 
leave a good share of the day still open for business. The place of assembling 
was, doubtless, that rude structure which served the Sabbath and other occa- 
sions of the New Town church as its meeting-house ; inasmuch as no other build- 
ing of adequate size presumably then existed there, and no scruple as to any spe- 
cial sanctity about the place would hinder.^^ 

A large amount of minor legislation was first attended to. One John Hol- 
land was authorized to " keepe a fferry betwixte the Capt. I'oynte att Dorchestr 
[now Commercial Point] & Mr. Newberryes Creeke" at Squantum [now Bil- 
lings's Creek] for which service he was to have four pence for one, and three 
pence each if there were two or more.-"* Order was taken for aiding Robert 
Wing, who was from sixty to seventy years of age, and poor, in building a 
house.^" Mr. Dummer, Assistant from Newbury, was empowered to adminis- 



20^ Not only did no public convej'ance of any sort — 
with the exception of boats across a few ferries — then 
offer itself to the traveller ; but nearly all locomotion must 
have been done on foot, as horses were yet very few in New 
England. \X>^i^vt^^ Memoir of Plym. GoL\: 206.] Two 
years before, Gov. Winthrophad walked to Ipswich to 
see his son John jr. : "The Governour went on foot to 
Agawam, and because the people there wanted a min- 
ister, spent the Sabbath with them, and exercised by 
way of prophecy, and returned home the To-20th." 
[Winthrop's Jottntal (under date of Thursday, 3-i3tll 
April 1634) i: 130.] 

■^--Mass. Coll. Rec. \: SS. 

200 *' By travells also by day and night to goe and return 
from their Court, etc., it pleased God to bring me neare 



unto death." tWilliams's yT/r. Cottcn^s Letter Exajtt- 
iiu-d and A/muered, 12.] " The Court being held with- 
in twelve or fourteene miles distance from Salem, travell 
to, and fro, was no likely cause of such distemper." 
[Cotton's Reply to Mr. }VilliamSi his Examinatiott, 
etc. 56.] 

207 We have Lechford's testimony that, years after, the 
Court met in the First Church in Boston [Plaine Deal- 
iii^j 24] ; and it is wilhin the memory of multitudes now 
living that town-meetings used to be habitually held in 
the New England Sanctuaries. 

^^^Mass. Col. Rec. i: 159; History of DorcJiestert 
592. 

^^ Mass. Col. Rec. i: 159. From Ibid^ ii: 216, it 
appears that in Nov. 1647, this Wing was " above So 



[55J 



ter the oath of office to a constable in that remote settlement.^^** Robert Long 
was licensed "to keepe a howse of intertainment att Charles Towne, for horse 
(S: man/'-'^ The bounds of Roxbury " on both sydes the towne" were ordered 
to be surveyed and reported to the next Court ; and Ensignc Jcnnison and Mr. 
Aspinwall were appointed to do it. A law which had prohibited merchants 
from taking more than ;^^^ per cent, profit for their wares ; one which had lim- 
ited the price of wages ; one which had regulated the time of going on board 
ships ; and one which had provided for the support of military officers out of 
the public treasury, were repealed; and in place of the latter it was enacted 
that each town maintain its own officers. It was decreed that Charlestown 
and Watertown be two distinct "companyes." Action was taken for the 
improvement of the highways between Lynn and Ipswich, and between Ips- 
wich and Newbury. It was ordered that Plymouth "be ayded with men and 
municons to supplant the French att Penopscott," and Capt. Sellanova was 
to be sent for at the public charge for conference in regard to this."'^ Con- 
stables who were behindhand on their rates to the Treasury, were directed 
to pay up at once, on pain of attachment."^^ John Winthrop, jr., "being former- 
ly chosen an Assistant, did nowe take an oath to his said place belong- 
inge."**^ Ordnance and ammunition were voted to be sent to the plantations 



years of age & 4 smal children, & nothing to Hvc upon." 
But Savage [Gen. Diet, iv : 595] says he was 60 in 1634 ; 
and lie certainly was put down at 60 on the shipping list 
of the /"rrt/ziTw, in which he came from Ipswich, Eng., 
in April 1634. [Hotten's Or ightal Lists 0/ Persons cf 
Quality^ EinigraiUs^ etc. 279.] One may find addi- 
tional facts about him in Drake's Hist. Boston, i: 791, 
793. 706. 

=">J/a«. Col Rec. i: 159. The strict Charter pro- 
vision in regard to this matter required the administra- 
tion of the oath of office to "all ofBcers" to he before 
tfte Governor of the Company. In this, as in some 
other matters, the great inconvenience attending a 
growth of the company not anticipated, and provided 
for, in the Charter, led to legislation which comported 
with its spirit better than its letter. [Charter, Mass. 
Col. Rec. i: 13; Lecture of Judge Joel Parker on the 
Charter, etc. Lcvtll Lectures hy Members of Mass. 
Hist. Soc. 1869, 367]. 

^" He had been an inn-kce{)cr at Dunstable, Bedford- 
shire ; had junt arrived with his wife Elizabeth and ten 
children, and purchased the " Great House ; " which had 
been built in 1629 by Thomas Graves for tlic Governor 
to live in, and for the accommodation of the courts; 
an'.l which had sub^qucntlybecn used as a mcc ting-house. 
In 1632 it had been purchased of the comi>any for 



£,\o. Robert Long now gave /^3o. [Frothingham's 
Hist, of C/tarlest(rwn^2<:i,()$,c^\ Savage,\\i: loS.] 

*'• A trading house belonging to Plymouth had been 
captured by the French, who, on being overhauled by a 
vessel sent from Plymouth, prepared for defence and 
refused to surrender, whereupon the Plymouth men 
applied to M.issachusetts for help. [Baylies's Hist. 
Mem, Plym. Col. i: 21S; Bradford's Hist. Plym. 
Plant. 332; Palfrey's ///j/, N, Eug. i: 540.] 

"' It seems to have been a part of the constables* 
duty to collect all taxes wliich they received warrants 
from the Treasury to gather. Considerable explicit 
legislation was called for from time to time to secure 
prompt action of this sort ; leading to the suspicion that 
our fathers had a reluctance to pay their taxes, quite as 
decided as that which is sometimes manifested by their 
sons, \Mtiss, Col. Rec. i: i^'o, 179,302.] 

"* John Winthrop, jr., had commenced the settlement 
of Ijiswich in 1633, and buried his first wife there in 
the summer of 1^134. He sailed for England in com- 
pany with John Wilson, there married again, and had just 
two or three days previous arrived back from Eng- 
land, in company with Wilson, Thomas Shei>ard, Hugh 
Peter, Henry Vane, and others, with a commianion "to 
begin a plantation at Connecticut, and (o be go\'cmour 
there." As the usual number of Assistants was com- 



[56] 



at Connecticut " to ffortifie themselues withall." On second thought, to pre- 
vent ill consequences from the repeal of the laws about prices and wages just 
ordered, it was enacted that any offence of the description which these laws 
had been intended to repress, might be considered by the Court, and punished 
at its discretion. A further statute, authorizing the appointment and swearing 
in of constables, was also passed. 

Early in the day, moreover — for the first time for a period of a little more 
tlian three years — a man had been ordered out of the jurisdiction. His name, 
which was John Smyth, — a miller of Dorchester — was even then most un- 
favorable for individualization ;-'^ and the general terms of his sentence, which 
was "for djTers dangerous opinions, wch he holdeth & hath dy vulged," '^'^ 
together with the fact that we do not find the name of this John upon the Rec- 
ords of the Court at any earlier or later date ; make it impossible to hazard a 
conjecture as to the nature of his opinions, or the peculiarities of danger which 
attended his case. Nor does the fact that he afterwards accompanied Williams 
to Moshassuck, and became with him one of the founders of Providence, indi- 
cate that he sympathized with Mr. Williams in the quality of his opinions ; for 
Mr. Williams's account of the matter implies that he allowed Smyth to go along 
with him, rather from pity of his desolate condition, than from any affinity 
between their views.^' 

The case of Roger Williams was reached at last. It will be remembered, 
that, having been accused of holding and teaching: (i) that the magistrate 
ought not to punish the breach of the first table, otherwise than in such cases 
as did disturb the civil peace ; (2) that the oath ought not to be tendered to the 
unregenerate ; (3) that one ought not to pray with the unregeaerate, though 
wife, or child ; (4) that one ought not to give thanks after the sacrament, nor 
after meat; and having also been guilt}', with his church, of " a great contempt 
of authority" in having become their pastor, as he did ; all had been referred 
to this Court for further consideration. Of course, then, these former charges 
now again came up, aggravated by what had since taken place, and especially 



plete without liim, and as he was simply in transitu to 
Connecticut, and Ins business required haste, his taking 
the oath on this occasion would seem to have been 
rather a matter of courtesy than of business. [Felt's 
I/S7vicAf iOf j2 \ HoUister's///5/. Cortrtecticnt,i: 26.] 

^*^ Savage names more than 70 John Smiths in his 
Ge»eaUgii:iil Dictionary of tlte First SettUrs 0/ Nczu 
England\\v: 11S-124], and thinks, beyond doubt, there 
must have been several more. 

^"Mass. Col. Rec. i: 159. 

**'" My souTs desire was to do the natives good, and 



to that end to have their language (which I after^vards 
printed), and therefore desired not to be troubled with 
English company ; yet out of pity I gave leave to Wil- 
liam Harris, then poor and destitute, to come along in 
my company. I consented to John Smith, miller at 
Dorchester (banished also), to go with me, and at John 
Smith's desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis Wickes, 
as also to a lad of Richard Waterman's. These are all 
I remember." [Williams's Answer to W. Harris, before 
the Court of Commissioners, i7-27th Nov. 1677, as 
cited by Gov. Arnold. Hist, R. I,i'. 97. ] 



[57] 



by the letters of admonition, which he had addressed, in the name of his own 
church, to the other churches " complaining of the magistrates for injustice, 
extreme oppression," etc., and the letter to his own church to insist upon their 
withdrawal of communion from all the churches in the Bay, " as full of anti- 
Christian pollution," etc.^* 

When demanded whether he were prepared to give satisfaction to the Court 
in these matters, Mr. Williams "justified both these letters, and maintained all 
his opinions.""'^ 

They asked him whether he would take the whole subject into still further 
consideration ; proposing that he employ another month in reflection, and then 
come and argue the matter before them. This he distinctly declined ; choos- 
ing " to dispute presently." 

They then appointed Thomas Hooker to go over these points in argument 
with him, on the spot, in the endeavor to make him see his errors. One single 
glimpse of this debate is afforded us, by Mr. Cotton, writing not very long after. 
He says that Mr. Williams complained, now in open Court: "that he was 
wronged by a slanderous report up and downe the Countrey, as if he did hold 
it to be unlawfull for a Father to call upon his childe to eat his meate. Our 
reverend Brother Mr. Hooker, (the Pastor of the Church where the Court was 
then kept) being mooved to speake a word to it, Why, saithe he, you will say 
as much againe (if you stand to your own Principles) or be forced to say noth- 
ing. When Mr. Williams was confident he should never say it, Mr. Hooker 
replyed, If it be unlawfull to call an unregenerate person to take an Oath, or to 
Pray, as being actions of God's worship, then it is unlawfull for your unregen- 
erate childe to pray for a blessing upon his own meate. If it be unlawfull for 
him to pray for a blessing upon his ]neate, it is unlawfull for him to eate it (for 
it is sanctified by prayer, and without prayer unsanctified, I Tim. iv : 4, 5.) If 
it be unlawfull for him to eate it, it is unlawfull for you to call upon him to 
eate it, for it is unlawfull for you to call upon him to sinne. — Here Mr. Wil- 
liams thought better to hold his peace, then to give an Answer.""'" 

It is not perhaps surprising, under all the circumstances, that, after spending 
the rest of the day in discussion, all ended where it had begun, in that neither 
the Court nor Mr. Hooker found it possible to " reduce him from any of his 



*•* Winthrop*9 yournaly \ : 171. 

*"*WinIhrop yyourn,\I, i: 171], is our main reliance 
for the account of this triiil, supplemented, in some 
points, by others. Mr. Knowles h.is the good sense 
and m-ngnanimily 10 style him XMemoir^ 64, 75] **the 
mild and candid Winlhrop," and frankly acknowledges 
that " this truly great man wrote without the angry tem- 



per which most of the early wi..., ;.^ .^jjcct 

exhibited.'* 

'=° Cotton's Rt^y lo Mr. tVilliamt hU Examina- 
tion^ ftc. 30. Cotton Mather repeats this from his 
grandfather's book [Magnaiia, Hook vii : 8), adding the 
characteristic comment : "such the Giddiness, the Con- 
fusion, the AniiKatacritit of that Sectarian Spihll" 



[58] 



errors." His positions, to his mind, had a " Rockie strength." He was ready 
for them, "not only to be bound and banished, but to die also in New Eng- 
land, as for most holy Truths of God in Christ Jesus." "^ 

Whereupon adjournment seems to have taken place, for a night's rest and 
reflection. 

The next day — which was Friday 9-19 October, 1635 — "- the Court reas- 



*^' I quote here his own language concerning the mat- 
ter, on a subsequent occasion, which, most hkely, sam- 
ples what lie said at the time. \_Mr. CoitofCs Letter 
Ejcamiticd a/td ArisTvered, etc. 5.] 

2~I believe I have the pleasure to be the first writer 
on the subject to slate this date of the banishment of 
Roger Williams wi;h entire accuracy. A singular vari- 
ety of times has been assigned to it. Winthrop [yoiir- 
jiai, i: 170] puts it under the general date of" October." 
Hubbard [Gen. Hist. /V. Erig: 202] seems to put it at 
some time in 1634. Holmes \_Annais^'\: 225] certainly 
does this. Neale [Hist. N. Eft^.'w 142] makes the 
same strange blunder. Morse and Parisli [Contpend- 
ions Hist. N. Eng. SG] give no date whatever. Backus 
[Hist. JV. Ettg. i: 69] simply quotes Winthrop's general 
date of " October, 1635." Knowles \_Me7noir^-]z\ does 
the same. Gammell [Life,, 52] says the sentence was 
passed on the 3d November, 1635. Elton [Lifef2<)] 
follows Gammell, as does Underwood [f/tiroductiou to 
Bloudy Tenettty etc. xxi]. Felt [Eccl. Hist. N'. Eng. 
i: 231] puts it generally under October, 1635. Palfrey 
[Hist. N. Eng.\: 412] prints "3 Sept." in his mar- 
gin against the sentence. Ex. Gov. Arnold {Hist. R. I. 
i: 37] and Mr. R. A. Guild, [Biog. Introduc. Works, 
etc. Fub. Narragansctt Chtb^ i: 27] fix it on the 3d 
November, 1655. Prof. J. L. Diman, in editing the 
second of tlie series of volumes issued by that Ciub, 
shows, I/^/^, ii: 239] that the first session of the Gen- 
eral Court which passed the sentence was held at New 
Town on the 2d Sept. 1635, then adjourned to the next 
day, and then adjourned to "the Thursday after the 
next Particular Court." He shews that the Particular 
Court referred to, met at New Town on Tuesday 6 Oct. 
1635, which would fix the date of reassembling of the 
General] Court forTliursday, S Oct. 1635 (althougli the 
marginal date of 3 Sept. is care'essly carried through 
the whole record.) He therefore fixes S October as the 
date of sentence. Eut Winthrop, after referrmg to the 
trial and the debate and its failure, says: ^'%Q,tJie 7iext 
7norni?ig, the Court sentenced him, e'.c." which natu- 
rally carries the important date one day further along, 
to Friday 9-19, where I assign it. Prof. Diman by no 
means overlooked this statement of Winthrop, but sug- 
gests that — writing sometime after — his memory may 
have been at fault, or that the Governor may mean that 
the vote, which had been determined upon the night 



before, was officially announced the next morning. To 
this I reply that, from the appearance of the entries, 
Winthrop would seem to have made the record between 
I November and 3 November — or about three weeks 
(only) after the event ; so tliat his memory can hardly be 
presumed to be then at fault in regard to so distinct a 
matter as whether the sentence was passed on Thursday- 
night or Friday morning; wliile the fact that so large an 
amount of business — some of it of a character to pro- 
voke discussion — preceded the trial of Mr. Williams, 
while that must have occupied, it would seem, a long 
time; with the further fact that a few other important 
votes, two of which might have started debate, are on 
the record following Mr Williams's sentence ; render it 
eminently probable that more time must have been con- 
sumed by the entire sitting of the Court than would 
have been afforded by what of Thursday remained after 
the earliest hour of meeting convenient for its assem- 
bling. I esteem it, therefore, much more probable that 
the Court adjourned over until Friday on the conclusion 
of Mr. Williams's hearing, and that the record of ad- 
journment was omitted (especially as one error of this 
sort is even now palpable on the page), than that Win- 
throp forgot, or that the entire of the business could 
h.ive been crowded into one abbreviated day. I am 
confirmed in this view by noticing that, in the Court Rec- 
ord of the case of Mr. John Wheeluxight, in November, 
1637, no cliange of date is noted in the margin be^.veen 
the trial and sentence, while in the particular account 
which is given of the trial in A SJu>rt Story of tJu Rise., 
Reign,, and Ruitic of tJie A ntino7uititts, etc, li is dis- 
tinctly stated that an adjournment over night took place : 
"although the cause was now ready for sentence, yet 
night being come, the Court arose and enjoyned him 
to appeare the next morning. The next morning he 
appeared, etc." [p. z6]. Precisely the same thing is, 
moreover, to be noticed in the trial of Mistress Anne 
Hutchinson. The Court Record [J/<wi'. C^/. /^^i:. i: 207] 
there has the appearance of being unbroken, as if all 
which is set down before the adjournment to the 15-25 
Nov. 1637, had taken place upon the 2-12 November. 
But the same SJtort Story[^. 36] gives these particulars: 
"It was neare night, so the Court brake up, and she 
was enjoyned to appeare againe the next morning. 
When she appeared the next day, etc." This looks as 
if it had been the Secretary's custom to count it one 



[59] 

sembled, and, there being no concession on the part of Mr. Williams, and no 
change in their own convictions of duty — in which they were reenforced by 
"all the ministers, save one,''^-^ — Ihey passed the following sentence: 

Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached & 
d)'\'ulged dp*ers newe Sc dangerous opinions, against the aucthoritie of magistrates, as also 
writt Ires of defamacon, both of the magistrates & churches here, & that before any con- 
viccon, & yet mainetaineth the same without retraccon, it is therefore ordered, that the said 
Mr. Williams shall depte out of this jurisdiccon within sixe weekcs nowe nexte ensuing, wch 
if hee neglect to pforme, it shalbe lawful! for the Gour & two of the magistrates to send him to 
some place out of this jurisdiccon, not to returne any more without licence from the Court.-* 

Some formality attended the announcement to Mr. Williams of the sentence 
thus passed upon him. The Governor"' appears to have summed up the case, 
and we have IVIr. Williams's own report of what he said.^*^ 

He stood up and spake : 

Mr. Williams (said he) holds forth these 4 particulars : 

Firsfj That we have not our Land by Pattent from the King, but that the Natives are the true 
owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such a receiving it by Pattent. 

Secondly^ That it is not lawfuU to call a wicked person to Sweare, to Pray, as being actions 
of God's worship. 



session of the Court, so long as it was continuous from 
day lo day, and to allow the date of llic assembling to 
run in the margin, until it was interrupted by adjourn- 
ment over some intervening day, or days, when the fact 
was noted, and the marginal date adjusted to corre- 
spond. 

5^ I am a little at a loss to decide whether this solitary 
dissentient were Mr. Cotton. In hislcttcr to Mr. Wil- 
liams he says: "Let not any prejudice against my 
person, (I beseech you,) forestall cither your affection or 
judgement, as if I had hastened forward the sentence of 
your civill banishment ; for what was done by the Mag- 
istrates, in that kindc, was neither done by my counsell 
nor consent, although I dare not deny the sentence 
passed to be righteous in the eyes of God, cic" [Lelter 
0/ Mr. JohnCottotCsyttc.yto Mr. WiUiams^etc. i.] To 
this Mr. W'illiams replied: ,,lhat Mr. Coltnn consented 
not, what need he [consent], not being one of the civill 
Court? But that hee conncellcd it (and so consented), 
beside what other proofc I might produce, and what him- 
self here under exprcsscth, I shall pro<lucc a double and 
unanswerable testimony." This he docs, by alleging 
(i) that Mr. Cotton taught the doctrine of not permit- 
ting, but persecuting, all other consciences and ways of 
worship but Iii.i o\vn, and (2) that divers worthy Gentle- 
men had told him | Williams] they should not have con- 
sented to the sentence but for Mr. Cotton's private 



advice and counsel. He then proceeds; *' I desire to 
bee as charitable as charity would have me, and therefore 
would hope that either his memory faild hiin, or that 
else he meant that in the very time of sentence passing 
he neither counselled nor consented (as hee hath since 
said, that he withdrew lumsclfc, and went out from the 
rest), . . and yet if so, I cannot reconcile his owne 
expression." [Mr. Williams's -'/>*. CottofCs Letter Ex- 
atnined^ etc. 6. ] To this Mr. Cotton rejoined ; " I have 
professed that I had no hand in procuring or soliciting 
the Sentence of his Bani.shment." [Cotton's Repiyto 
Mr. WiUiauts hU Exiimitiatt'ojtjetc. 8.] 

^'^Mass. Col Rec. i: 160. 

^"Mr. Williams calls him in one place, [-l/y-. Cotton's 
Letter Exavtitiedyetc. 4] "one of the most eminent 
Magistrates (whose name and speech may by others be 
remembered"); and in anotlier, \_Tlu lUoudy Tetutit 
Vet More Bloudy^etc. \o\ "the chief Judge in Court." 
These expressions confirm the natural judgment that it 
would be the place of the Governor, as presiding officer, 
to say what was (o be said on such an occasion, itut in 
his tetter to Major Mason, written ihirty-five yean after, 
Williams says: "that heavenly man, Mr. Mains, Gov- 
ernour of Connecticut, though he pronounced the sen- 
tence 01 my long banishment against me at Camtiridge, 
then Newtown, etc" (1 Man. If tit. Coli. 1; 3V>.J 

"" J/r. Cotton's Lttttr Examined^ etc. 4. 



[6o] 



TTiirdlyj That it is not lawful! to heare any of the Ministers of the Parish Assemblies in 
England. 

Fourthly^ That the Civil! Magistrates power extends only to the Bodies and Goods, and out- 
ward State of men, etc 

To this the Governor added ^ the citation of a passage out of Paul to the 
Romans, as follows :^^ "Now I beseech you, brethren, marke them which cause 
diuisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye haue learned ; and 
auoyd them." 

By way of appendix to the case of Mr. Williams, thus disposed of, the Court 
proceeded to "enjoyn" j\Ir. Samuel Sharpe to be in attendance at the next 
Particular Court, to report progress in regard to the condition of the Salem 
church, and especially whether they w^ould persist in the attitude which they 
had assumed, or acknowledge offence in regard to the same.^ 

The six weeks allowed Mr. Williams in which to settle up his affairs before 
leaving the plantation, expired on Friday, 20-30 November. Previous to that 
time, however, a new claim for the clemency of delay came into the case, which 
did not fail of recognition. Soon after the decree of banishment, Mr. Williams 
fell suddenly, and severely ill. Mr. Cotton had the impression that his sick- 
ness was caused by "over-heat" in disputation ;^ but Mr. Williams attributed 
it to excessive labors in his profession and in manual toil in the fields, aggra- 
vated " by travells also by day and night to goe and return from their Court." ^^ 
It was" a sodaine distemper,"^ and although he had two "skillfull in Physick," it 
brought him "neare unto death." ^ There is evidence that he was smitten with it 
in connection with certain warm debates which occurred in the church in Salem, 
immediately following this action of the Court ;"^ debates unquestionably made 
intense by a letter, or letters,^ sent to that church about this time, intended to 



*=^ The Bhudy TeiutU Yet More Bloudy, etc. 40- 
See also p. 131, wliere Williams returns to the subject, 
and uses this citation, which he claims to refer purely to 
cliurdi ofiFences, as an argument to prove that the Mas- 
sachusetts men had "made up a l;ind of national church, 
and (as the phrase is) a Christian State, and government 
of Church and Commonweale, that is of Christ and the 
world together." 

^^JiomariSjXvii 17. 

*^Mass. CoL Rec. i : 161. 

^^ Letter to Mr. Williams^z. 

^^Mr. Cotton'' s Letter Examined., etc. 13. 

^^ Reply to Mr. IVilliamshis Examinaiion^etc. 56. 

=^.1/r. Cotton's Letter Examined^ etc, 13. 

=^-*Mr. Cotton says in his Reply^etc: "The Court 
being held within twelve or fourteene miles distance from 
Salem, travell to, and fro, was no likely cause of such 
distemper. And whatsoever his Labours were in Towne 



or Field, on the Lordes Dayes, or weeke dayes, (I de- 
tract not from them)but this is all I would say, That that 
sodaine distemper fell not upon him, neither in the field 
at his labour, nor on the weeke dayes, or Lord's dayes 
in liis Preaching: but in his vehement publick arguing 
against the writings and testimonies of the Churclies 
and Brethren sent to him, and to the church of Salem, 
against his corrupt wayes.'* [56.] 

^^ Cotton in his Letter\_2'\ speaks generally of Mr. 
Williams's disputing being against'* the Lord Jesus^ 
in "the mouthes and testimonies of the Churches and 
Brethren.'* In the same document he refers to reasons 
for his banishment etc., "as may appeare by that an- 
swer which was sent to the Brethren of the Church of 
Salem, and to your selfe " [2] ; which must necessarily 
intend some communication to him and to them, made 
subsequent to the sentence, yet prior to his departure 
from the town. 



[6i] 



win ihem back from the way into which Mr. Williams had led them; an 
endeavor which, with a majority of them, proved successful. Probably because 
of this sickness, the authorities gave him leave to stay until Spring, on the 
(under the circumstances far from unreasonable) condition that he should not 
"go about to draw others to his opinions." '^^ 

Wihthrop — between whom and Williams a life-long friendship existed, not- 
withstanding all their differences — privately advised him to go into the fertile, ■ 
comely, and as yet unsettled, Narragansett country;-''* and Cotton says some 
of his friends went before him thither to make preparation for his coming?"*^ 
As the days began to lengthen for another year, the tonic of the strengthening 
cold, perhaps, so invigorated the invalid that he quite commenced again his 
old work as a teacher of the people ; so that, disregarding wholly any promise 
necessarily implied — if never to them publicly expressed — in his acceptance of 
the lenity of the government in lengthening the period of his tolerated stay ; he 
"did use to entertain company in his house, and to preach to them, even of 
such points as he had been censured for."^"^ 

It was not to be expected that this could long be suffered, and so Winthrop 
tells us, under the general date of January 1635-6, that the Governor and 
Assistants (that is, the Particular Court) met at Boston "to consider about Mr. 
Williams." It was reported to them that above twenty persons had been 
gained to his opinion,"^^ and that the leaven was spreading in Salem even to the 
extent of endangering the neglect of the public ordinances there."^* It was 
finally decided to send him to England by a ship then lying at Nantaskct, and 
ready to depart. James Penn, Marshal of the Court,-*- served the warrant 
upon him to come to Boston for that purpose. Answer was shortly returned by 



^' Winthrop's yt»tr/ui/, i : 175. 

^^"Th.it ever honored Govcmour, Mr. Winthrop, 
privately wTotc to me lo steer my course to the Nahigon- 
sct-Bay, and Indians, Tor many high and hcivcTily and 
publike ends, incournging nic from ihe frccnes of the 
place from any English claims or pattents." [Letter of 
R. Williams lo Maj- Mason (1670), i Afass. Hist. Colt. 
i: 276.] Sec also testimony to the same effect in an- 
other letter cilcd by Knowlcs. {Afemoir^t 74.] 

^^ " In the meane lime, some of his friends went to 
the place apixjinted by himsclfe before hand, to make pro- 
vision of housing, and other necessaries for him against 
his coming, etc" \Rfply to Mr. W^illiams's Exam. 
tt<. S.] 

*^' Winthrop's 7^«r«rt/, i ; 175. 

"*"This I have been given to understand, iha' the 
increase of concourse of people to him on the lord's 
dayes in private, lo ihe neglect or deserting of pubhck 



Ordinances, and to the spreading of the Leaven of his 
corrupt imaginations, provoked the Magistrates, rather 
ihcn to breed a winter's spiritual plague in the Countrey, 
to put upon him a winter's journey out of the Coun- 
trey. Gangrtrttatn atnoveas^ tu pars sitwera trahatur. 
[Cotton's Reply to Mr. M'^iUuims's Exam. etc. 57. J 

-*3"TIierc is a Marshal, who is as a Sheriffe, or 
Bailiffc, and his deputy is the Gaoler, and Executioner.'* 
[Lechford's Plainc Dealht^^ctc. 39.] This was James 
Penn, who had been chosen beadle at the first session of 
the Court in Cliarlestown aj Aug. -a Sept. 1O30, and 
marshal 25 Sept. -5 Oct. 1^34. Cotton, in writing his 
name in the margin of the MSS. of his Rtply„ etc.^ 
probably wrote it Fcnnc, which ihe London compositors 
and proof-reader transmuted into James Dotiiu ; (here 
being no [lersnn of lh.it surname, or any resembling it, 
then in the country. [Mass. Col. Rec. i: 74, 138; Cot- 
ton's Reply, etc. 57. See also Plains Dtaiin^^ttc. aS, 
n-itli its note 97.] 



[62] 



a Salem committee which charged itself with that labor, that he was still too ill 
to comply with the order without hazard of his life. The Marshal, however, 
who was a godly man and greatly respected,^^^ testified that he saw Mr. Wil- 
liams and talked with him, and that *' he discerned no signe of sicknesse upon 
him, much lesse of nearnesse unto death." So John Underhill, then one of the 
two chief officers of the plantation, and who was that year chosen Captain for 
Boston,^*^ was sent with a pinnace to Salem, ordered to take Mr. Williams and 
put him on board the ship. But when they arrived at his house they were 
informed that he had been gone three days — nobody could (or would) tell 
them whither. The event proved that — not altogether alone — he was mak- 
ing his way through the difficult, yet by no means pathless, winter wilder- 
ness to the wigwams of some of his Indian friends ; whence with opening spring 
he repaired to Seekonk to commence the clearing which, not long after, circum- 
stances led him to abandon for the more beautiful and hospitable shores of the 
Moshassuck.-^^ 



243"xhe officer of justice is a man fearing God, and 
of a tender Conscience, and who dare not allow that 
liberty to his tongue which the Examiner [Mr. Wil- 
liams] often usetli in his Discourse." [Cotton's Rcply^ 
etc. 57, 59.] Mr. Penn was, through a long life (dying 
in 1671), greatly trusted in Boston ; was selectman many 
years, and town treasurer. Deputy, and Elder of the First 
Church. He was one of the Elders of that Church 
whose course as to the settlement of John Davenport, in 
166S, the seventeen ministers protested against. [Drake's 
HUt. Boston, i : 189,233, 237,291, 307, 31S, 320, 3S5, 
390; Hutchinson's Hist, Mass. i: 246, 248; Savage's 
Gen. Diet, lii: 3S9.] 

2"Winthrop's Jourftal^ i: 176; Mass. Col. Rec. 

i: 75. 77. 191- 

-'*^Most likely, with his four companions, [See note 
217 ante] he went as quickly as he could to Sowams 
(Warren, R. I.), the home of his friend^and the 
friend of the Plymouth men — Massasoit. He says: 
" I was sorely tost for one fourteen weekes, in a bitter 
winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did 
meane." [Letter to Maj. Mason, \ Mass. Hist. Coll. 
\: 276.] I do not think he meant by this, as seems to 
have been commonly supposed, that it took him four- 
teen weeks to make his way from Salem to his place of 
refuge, and that lie was camping out in the snow all that 
time ; but that he meant to say that for fourteen weeks 
he lived in the wilderness among the savages. If he 
left Salem, as is commonly supposed, about the middle 
of January, fourteen weeks would bring him to about 
the last week in April, by which time he and his little 
company would naturally have been so far along at Sea- 
konk as to have some civilized, though rude, shelter 



there. It did not probably take him and his comrades 
more than four or five days, at the outside, to reach 
Sowatits, where they would be sure of the best which 
the Indians had. But he who reads Edward Winslow's 
account of his visit to Stnvmus fifteen years before — 
how he went supperiess to bed. and \vas "worse weary of 
his lodging than of his iourney" [Mo}irt''s Relation^ ^$\ — 
may well understand that Williams need here use no 
unwonted exaggeration of speech in declaring his small 
acquaintance, during all that time, with bread and bed. 
Mr. Guild S^Piib. Narragntisett Clitb^ i: 32] concludes 
that he went by sea to Seekonk; so interpreting Wil- 
liams's expressions that he was "sorely tossed," that he 
'^steered /lis coitrse to the Nahigonset-bay from Salem, 
etc.^^ [Letter above], ^ind especially his complaint [Cot- 
tons Letter E.xamiiied., etc. 12] of "hardships of sea 
and land, in a banished condition." But Prof. Dimau 
has pointed out [Pub. Narraganseti Clnb,\\'. 87] that 
the common metaphor of ''steering his course" is to be 
interpreted by his accompanying words: "though in 
winter snow, etc. ;" which would not naturally apply 
to a voyage by water ; while the connection of the 
phrase "hardships of sea and land, etc., "linking itwith 
" debts, necessities, poverties and miseries," clearly 
points, not to the incidents of this particular journey, 
but to his general experiences in the years since he lived 
at Salem. This theory that Williams went by sea, was 
propounded years ago by Gen. G. M. Fessenden of 
Warren, R. I., in an ingenious paper still existing in 
MSS., in the archives of the R. I. Historical Society 
[Arnold's Hist. R, I. ii : 163]. But to one who consid- 
ers all that is involved, the notion is intrinsically absurd. 
A rowing voyage in an open boat in the dead of winter, 



[63] 



It may be added here, in brief, tliat besides those who immediately identified 
themselves, and their future, with Mr. Williams, there were three men and eight 
women left at Salem who cherished and avowed his peculiar views y^^ that the 
Church, as such, followed him into the wilderness with what it regarded as its 
appropriate labor;**'' admonished him for wrong-doing when he demitted his 
ministry ;-*^ and, finally, after he had repudiated his infant baptism, been rebap- 
tized,'*'' and, three or four months after, ^^ had renounced his second baptism 
and become the "Come-outer" from all current sacred rites, and existing relig- 
ious organizations that he always after remained, ^^ they consummated their 



exposed to those 'Meangerous shoulds and roring break- 
ers" off the elbow of Cape Cod, which on the io-2oth 
of November drove the Mayflower back [Dradford's 
1/t.ii. Plym. Plant. 77], would be an act of needless 
foolhardiness — to say nothing of his risk of running into 
the jaws of the very pinnace commissioned to arrest him, 
and within eye-shot of the ship from which he was try- 
ing tocscapc — of which we cannot believe Mr. Williams 
guilty. Besides, Wilhams expressly says, [-Vr. Cotton'' s 
Letter Examitud^ etc. ij tliat he was "exposed to 
winter miseries in a lunvling lyUdernesSy* and again, in 
the preface of that work, "To the Impartiall Reader,"' 
he speaks of himself as ''exposed to the mercy of an 
howhng Wildemesseio Frostand Snow;'* and still again, 
{.Ibid, 33] he calls it "the miserie of a Winter's Banisli- 
mcnt amongst the Barbarians." These are expressions 
entirely germane to the common theory of a land jour- 
ney, but almost irreconcilable with the fancy that he 
went by water. 

**''This came out in the April following, when the 
church at Salem asked counsel of the other churches 
what course should be taken with this minority, and 
whether it might not be better "to grant them dismis- 
sion to be a church by themselves ; " and it was decided 
that the number was too small, besides that it was ques- 
tionable policy "to raise churches on such grounds-" 
[Winthrop's yourtta/,'i: 1S6.] Neal U//st. N. En^^. 
(1720)1: 143] represents that : "sentence of banishment 
being read against Mr. Williams, the whole Town of 
Salem was in an uproar ; for sucli was the Popularity of 
the man, and such the Comp.nssion of the People, occa- 
sioned by his Followers raising a Cry of Persecution 
against him, ih;U he would have carried off the greatest 
part of the Inhabitants of the Town, if the Ministers of 
Boston liad not interposed, etc." I have met with the 
statement, however, in no earlier writer, which is a little 
remarkable if it be true ; as Neal wrote some fourscore 
years after the occurrences took place, and in another 
count r>'. 

"'There is a passage in Cotton's Coniroversie Cotf 
cwming Liberty 0/ Cofucitnce in Matitrs 0/ Religion 



(1649) [14], which seems to refer to this labor as taking 
place, by letter, in a somewhat elaborate form ; in which 
he forbears adding extended reasons as to a certain 
point: '"because you may find that done to your hand, in 
a Treatise sent to some of tlie brethren late of Salem, 
who doubted as you do." 

-'*"If it h.xd been a negligent and proud part in 
Archippus (as Mr. Williams confesseth) to refuse to 
hearken to the lawfull voyce of the Church of Colosse. 
admonishing iilm of his slackncsse in his Minislery; I 
know not but it might be such a like part in Mr. Wil- 
liams to refuse to hearken to the voyce of the Church of 
Salem, admonishing him to take heed of deserting his 
Ministery. Whether is a greater sinne in a Minister, 
not to fulfill his Ministery, or to desert his Ministery.'" 
[Cotton's Reply, etc. 20.] 

-*^ Winthrop's T'^wr/z/i/, i: 293. 

=^"I have been his [Roger Williams's] Neighbour 
these 3S years ; I have only been Absent in the time of 
the Wars with the Indi.-ins till this present. I walked 
with him in the Baptist's Way about 3 or 4 Months 
but in that short time of his Standing I discerned that 
he must have the Ordering of all their Affairs, or else 
there would be no Quiet Agreement amongst them. In 
which time he brake off from his Society, and declared 
at large the Ground and Reasons of it — that their Bap- 
tism could not be right, because it was not Administered 
by an Apostle, etc" [Letter 0/ Ridtard Scot. Appen- 
dix of A Neiu England Firebrand QttencJud^ etc. 247.] 
See also a letter from Williams to Winihrop, written in 
1649, which gives some account of his views on Baptism, 
etc., at that time. [4 Mixss. I/ist. Coll. vi : 273] 

^''[Hubbard'sCcw. //«/. A', ^«^. aoS.] Sccalsofu> 
Ihcr testimonies, e. g. " At Providence, which is twenty 
miles from the said island (W^///(/w/cX], lives Masicr Wil- 
liams, and his company of divers opinions ; most are Ana- 
baptists: they hold there is no tnic visible Church in the 
Bay, nor in the world, nor any true Ministerie " [Lccli- 
(onWPlnifte Dealing, etc. 42.] Bailliesays, [Lettersand 
7ournals,etc. {Letter ^i)\\: 43]: "Sundry of the Inde- 
pendents are stepped out of the church, and follow my 



[64] 



friendly fidelity, according to the best light they had, by passing upon him the 
great censure, and excommunicating him from their fellowship.^' 

Now, in view of all the facts here hinted, the simple and only question before 
us must be, not what opinions Roger Williams at this time held which were 
incongenial with those then dominant in Massachusetts — whether, in point of 
fact, far in advance of, or far behind, those of others ; but for which of those 
opinions he was thus ordered beyond the jurisdiction of the plantation? Was 
' he sent away specifically for teaching toleration? That question I propose 
now to consider in the light of such evidence — cotemporary and other — as I 
have been able to discover, which bears upon it. Some, which would have been 
of extraordinary value, at least for interpreting the aspect which the subject had, 
at the time, in the view of the good men of the colony, seems to hav^e utterly 
perished out of the knowledge of men ;^^ enough however remains to indicate, 
and warrant, a clear judgment in the case. 

I. It is necessarily to be presumed, first of all, that the sentence of the Court, 
ordering the departure of Mr. Williams from the jurisdiction, would state with 



good acquaintance, Mr. Roger Williams, who says there 
is no church, no sacraments, no pastors, no church- 
officers or ordinances in the world, nor has been since a 
fewyearsafier the Apostles." In Mr. W.'sfamous debate 
with the Quakers, in 1672, which he himself reported, 
John Stubs asked him why he made certain charges 
against the Quakers, when he was himself so guilty — 
"not living in church ordinances?" To which he says 
he replied: ''I professed that if my Soul coidd Jinde 
rest in joyning unto any of the Churches professing 
Jesus Christ now extant, I would readily and gladly do 
it, yea, unto themselves whom now I opposed." [G^f. 
Fox Digged out 0/ His Burroives, etc 66.] 

^- Hugh Peter was then pastor of the church. After 
the excommunication hewTolein the church's name to 
the oihcr churches announcing the fact. His letter to 
the Dorchesier Church has been preserved. It runs 
thus — under date of i-ii July, 1639: '* Reuerend and 
deerly beloued in the Lord : Wee thought it our bounden 
duty to acquaynt you with the names of such persons as 
haue had the great censure past vpon them in this our 
church, with the reasons thereof; beseeching you in the 
Lord not only to reade their names in publike to yours, 
but also to giuevsthe like notice of any dealt with in 
like manner by you, that so wee may walke towards them 
accordingly ; for some of vs here haue had communion 
ignorantly with such as haue bin cast out of other 
churches, 2 Thes. iii: 14. Wee can doe no lesse then 
haue such noted as disobey the truth." Then follow the 
names of Roger Williams and wife, and eight others, 
who have wholly refused to hear the Church, denied it, 



and all the churches of the Day, to be true churches, etc. 
Hutckimoit Papers. Felt's ^c<r. Hist, i: 379.] 

2"^ I have in mind especially "a full Treatise" on the 
subject, twice referred to by Mr. Cotton as having been 
written by John Eliot. He says, \_Rcply to Mr. Wil- 
liams his Exam. etc. 7] : " What causes moved the 
Magistrates so to proceed against him[R. W.]at that 
time, is fully declared by another faithfull and diligent 
hand, in another Treatise of tlial matter." And again, 
[ll'i'd, 26] he says: "I referre the Reader for Answer to 
a full Treatise of that Argument, penned by a reverend 
faithfull Brother {the Teacher of the Church at Rockf- 
bury), etc." I have never met with this treatise, nor — 
after considerable research — ever seen it catalogued as 
existing in any librar>-. It seems, at first glance, im- 
probable that Cotton should refer English, and other 
miscellaneous readers of his own book, to such a treatise 
for information, if it existed only in manuscript ; but we 
have ample evidence that many such tractates did then 
have a considerable public circulation, wliich were never 
printed; e. g^., Edwards, in 1644, in his Antafiologia 
[201], after enumerating five or six books as supporting 
a certain view, adds, "and in manuscripts not a few, par- 
ticularly in a manuscript intituled A Treatise about a 
Church, eic.^' Very likely this manuscript had been sent 
to England to be printed, and Cotton supposed it had 
been ; inasmuch as sometimes years then passed, before 
it would be known here whether a manuscript forwarded 
to London for the press had been issued, or not. Cotton 
says it was so long before his o^vn Letter was printed, 
that he had almost forgotten it. [Reply ^ etc. i.\ 



[65] 



some exactness the reasons in view of which such action was taken. If the 
reader will turn back to that sentence,^ and examine It carefully, he will see 
that three complaints are therein made : (i) of public attacks upon the authority 
of the magistrates ; (2) of defamatory letters concerning them, and the churches, 
and (3) of contumacious persistence in this course. Tliere is no proof here 
that the subject of "soul-liberty" came into the question in any manner. Mr. 
Williams had denied that the magistrates had authority to proceed upon the 
assumption that their land-patent was good in equity, or to administer the judi- 
cial oath to unregenerate citizens; as really as — and more earnestly than — 
he ever had gainsaid their right to '* punish the breach of the first table." And, 
although it appears from Winlhrop that, in the previous July, Mr. Williams had 
denied to the Court the magistrates' power in matters of religion, it is not in 
evidence that that point was specifically made in the final trial. 

2. Various testimony^ may be cited from Mr. Williams himself, in proof 
that it was upon sometliing else than his views on the subject of toleration, that 
he understood the action of the Court to rest. 

(i.) He admitted that Governor Haynes was exact in his summing up of the 
case ;^ while that only incidentally alluded to the subject of toleration, but 
laid no stress upon it.^' 

(2.) In one of his communications to Mr. Cotton he narrowed down the 
causes of his "banishment" to a single one, and that he declared to be "my 
humble and faithfull, and constant admonishing of them of such unclean walking , 
between a particular Church (which they only professe to be Christs) and a 
Nationall."^* Prof. Diman, in annotating this passage, forcibly calls atten- 



*^ See p. 59. 

**^With so much positive testimony as I am about to 
present, it seems hardly wortli wliile to detain the reader 
with ncsalivc evidence. I only therefore here raise the 
question whether, if Mr. Williams's "banishment" was 
due to any such view of his on the liberty of conscience, 
as it has been of late years fashionable to assert, it be 
not a remarkable circumstance that neiilicr Thomas 
Morton (who published his .Vrtw Etiffiish Cnruutn in 
1637), nor Thomas Ixrchford (who published his I'/aiit 
Dealittf^ in 1642), both of whom hated the Colonists, 
and could have used such a fact with signal force — and 
itrould have had no scruples in doinj; so — did not men- 
tion it; although the latter refers to Williams and his 
opinions? I submit, also, that it seems unaccountable 
that Capt. Edward Juhnson — who was in Charlcstown 
just before, and just after, the occurrence — in writinc; 
his lyoHtUr-M^orkiii^ ProvitUncc 0/ Shu's Satnour^ 
//i-., within twelve or fifteen years, and in referring dis- 
tinctly to Mr. Williams therein [131), said nothing about 



a fact — if it were a fact — so well suited to be mentioned 
by him. 

^^ See p. 59. 

^-'^ " I acknowledge the particulars were rightly summed 
up, etc.'* \Mr. Cotton s Letter Examined^ etc. 5.] 

2^ By this he means his unceasing endeavors to con- 
vict the colonists of sin, because they would not refuse 
ITcrmission to iheir church members, in revisiting Eng- 
land, to worship in the congregations of the Church of 
England — the groimd of his separation from his own 
Salem Church. The statement is found in Mr. Cotton s 
Letter Examined, etc. 33 ; and on the same page he 
repeats the avowal that he "at last suffrcd /or inch 
admonitions to tfietn, the miscric nf a Winter's I'anis^i ■ 
ment amongst the Rarbarian^i." Entirely in the same line 
IS his declaration, in hislcttcrlo John Cotton, jr., (March 
1671), to this effect: ** I first withdrew communion from 
yourselves for (your] halting between Christ and Anti- 
christ, the parish churche% and Christian congregation*.*' 
[ProceediHj^s Miss. Hist. Soc. i^s^.jij; ] 



[66] 



tion to the remarkable fact that Mr. Williams here makes no allusion whatever 
to his opinions respecting the power of the civil magistrate, " although such 
allusion would naturally find a place in a discussion respecting ' the evill of a 
National Church. '"="» 

(3.) In The Bloody Tment Yet More Bloody (1652) Mr. Williams goes some- 
what at large into the matter. He says r™ 

I know those thoughts have deeply possessed not a few, considering also the sinne of the 
Pattcnts, wherein Christian Kings (so calld) are invested with Right by virtue of their Chris- 
tianitie, to take and give away the Lands and Countries of other men ; As also considering the 
unchristian Oaths swallowed downe, at their coming forth from old England,* especially in 
superstitious Laud, his time and domineering. 

And I know these thoughts so deeply afflicted the Soule and Conscience of the Discusser^' 
in the time of his Walking in the way of New Englands Worship, that at last he came to a per- 
swasion, that such sinnes could not be Expiated, without returning againe into England : or a 
publike acknowledgement and Confession of the Evill of so and so dep.irting : To this purpose 
before his Troubles and Banishment, he drew up a Letter'^'- (not without the Approbation of 
some of the Chiefe of New England, then tender also upon this point before God) directed unto 
the King himselfe, humbly acknowledging the Evill of that part of the Pattent which respects 
the Donation of Land, etc. 

This Letter, and other Endeavours (tending to wash off publike sinnes, to give warning to 
otiiers, and above all, to pacifie and to give Glory unto God) it may be that Councells from 
Flesh and Bloud supprest, and Worldly policie at last prevailed : for this very cause (amongst 
others aftcnuards re-examined) to banish the Discusser from such their Coasts and Territories. 

The most that could be claimed here is that there may be a veiled reference 
to the subject of toleration, in the phrase "other Endeavours," etc.; but it lies 
on the surface of the statement that Mr. Williams did not here intend to make 
that prominent — least of all to represent that everything hiiiged upon it. 

(4.) Quite analagous to this is another account of the matter, which came 
from his pen in a letter to Gov. Endecott, written in 1651, in which he puts it 
thus:-'= 

'Tis true, I have to say elsewhere about the Causes of my Banishment : as to the calling of 
Naturall Men to the exercise of those holy Ordinances of Prayers, Oathes, &c. As to the fre- 
quenting of Parish Churches, under the pretence of hearing some Ministers : As to the matter 
of the Patent, and King James his Christianitie and Title to these parts, and bestowing it on his 
Subjects by vertue of his being a Christian King, &c. 

At present, let it not be offensive in your eyes, that I single out another, a fourth point, a 



"^^ Publications 0/ tJu N'arragansett Club, ii: 165. 
='''»P.ige276. 

^'■'i By which word Mr. Williams here means himself. 
-'"'- It has been nsual to assume that this "letter" was 
the " Treatise '* [see p. 26 ante\ which made disturbance 



at Plymouth, and afterward at Boston. But the internal 
evidence of such identity, I cannot help thinking to be 
rather slight. 

!« The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody, etc. (Ap- 
pendix) 305. 



[67] 



cause of my Banishment also ; wherein I greatly feare one or two sad evills, which have befallen 
your Soule and Conscience. 

The point is that of the Civill Magistrates dealing in matters of Conscience and Religion; 
as also of persecuting and hunting any for any matter mcerly Spirituall and Religious. 

It is clear now, from these four citations, tfiat he who should take Mr. Wil- 
liams's own version of the case as unbiassed, complete and accurate, would 
necessarily conclude that the subject of liberty of conscience was considered by 
him to have been among the causes which led to his exclusion from the Massa- 
chusetts territory. It is equally clear that he would never get so much as the 
hint that it was, specifically and solely, the cause thereof. Nothing can be 
plainer from his own statements, than that Mr. Williams lived and died in 
humiliating ignorance of the fact which his biographers and eulogists have since 
discovered, that "the head and front of his ojfhiding^' consisted in his "maintain- ' 
ing the great doctrine which has immortalized his name : that the civil power has 
no jurisdiction over the conscience .'"'^'^ 

Mr. Williams, moreover, was so near a party in interest that it would not be 
strange if even this very moderate claim which he himself has made, should 
suffer some deduction, when submitted to the cross-light of the testimony of 
those who saw the matter from a wholly different point of view. Let us see 
what that cross-light may be. 

3. John Cotton is a voluminous, while he certainly meant to be a candid, wit- 
ness. And I call attention to his statements, first, because he distinctly trav- 
ersed some pf these very pleadings of Mr. Williams, and that, at length. 

(i.) In his Reply to Mr. Williatns his Examination, etc.,''"' he says : 

Whom that eminent Magistrate was,™" that so summed up the grounds of Mr. Williams his 
Banishment in those foure Particulars above mentioned, Mr. Williams doth wisely conccalc his 
name, lest if he were named, he should be occasioned to bcare witiiessc against such fraudulent 
expression of the Particulars : whereof some were no causes of his Banishment at all, and such 
as were causes, were not delivered in such gcnerall Tearmes. For in universalibus lalet Dolus. 
It is evident the two latter causes which he givcth of his iJanishment, were no causes at all, as 
he cxpresseth them. There are many kno^vne to hold both these Opinions, Thnt it is not law- 
full to heare any of Hit Ministers of Hie Purish Assemblies in En^lanJ, and That the Civill Ata^- ] 
istrates power extendetli oncly to the bodies, and goods, and outward estates of men: and yet they 
are tolerated not oncly to live in the Common-wealth, but also in the fellowship of the 
Churches. 

The two former, though they be not so much noysed, yet there be miny, if not most, that 



'"'Prof. Cimmcirs i//i', 55; Knowlcs's J/(r/«<?i>, 80; 
Elton's Life, 30. 

*" Page j6. 

***Thc reference is to Willi.nms's report of Governor 
Ha)iie$*s summarizinK of the points in his case when 



pronouncing 8entcli^^, i -<,.: i-- %,a»te\. Williams h.ld 
not mentioned Itis name ; simply saying, " one of the 
mivf.\ eminent magistrates" (whose name and S)>ecch 
may by others be remembered) stood up and spake, etc." 
Mr. CottOfi't Litter Examitud^ tte. 4.] 



[68] 

hold, Tliat we have not our Land, merely by right of Patent from the King, but that the Natives are 
true ouners of all that they possesse, or improve. Neither doe I know any amongst us, that either 
then were, or now are, of another minde. 

And as {or the other Point ; That it is not la-u/full to call a wicked Person to S7ueare, or pray : 
Though that be not commonly held, yet it is knowne to be held of some, who yet are tolerated 
to enjoy both Civill, and Church-liberties amongst us. 

To come therefore to Particulars : Two tilings there were, which (to my best observation 
and remembrance) caused the Sentence of his Banishment : and two other fell in, that hast- 
ened it. 

(fl) His violent and tumultuous carriage against the Patent. By the Patent it is, that we 
received allowance from the King to depart his Kingdome, and to carry our goods with us, with- 
out offence to his Officers, and without paying custome to himselfe. By the Patent, certain 
select men (as Magistrates, and Freemen) have i>ower to make Laives, and the Magistrates to 
execute Justice, and Judgement amongst the People, according to such Lawes. By the Patent 
we have Power to erect such a Government of the Church, as is most agreeable to the Word, to 
the estate of the People, and to the gaining of Natives (in Gods time) first to Civility, and then 
to Christianity. 

To this Authority established by this Patent, English-men doe readily submit themselves : 
and foraine Plantations (the French, tlie Dutch, and Swedish) doe willingly transact their 
Negotiations with us, as with a Colony established by the Royall Authority of the State of 
England. 

This Patent, Mr. Williams publickly, and vehemently preached against, as containing matter 
of falsehood, and injustice : Falsehood in making the King the first Christian Prince who had 
discovered these parts : and injustice, in giving the Countrey to his English subjects, which 
belonged to the Native Indians. This therefore he pressed upon the Magistrates and People, 
to be humbled for from time to time in dayes of solemn Humiliation, and to returne the Patent 
back againe to the King. It was answered to him, first, That it was neither the Kings intend- 
ment, nor the English Planters, to take possession of the Countrey by murther of the Natives, 
or by robbery : but either to take possession of the voyd places of the Countrey by the Law of 
Nature (for Vacuum Domicilium cedit occupanii :) or if we tooke any Lands from the Natives, it 
was by way of purchase, and free consent. A little before our coming, God had by pestilence, 
and other contagious diseases, swept away many thousands of the Natives, who had inhabited 
the Bay of Massachusetts, for which the Patent was granted. Such few of them as survived 
were glad of the coming of the English, who might preserve them from the oppression of the 
Nahargansets. For it is the manner of the Natives, the stronger Nations to oppresse the 
weaker. 

This answer did not satisfie Mr. Williams, who pleaded : the Natives, though they did not, 
nor could subdue the Countrey (but left \tvaacum Domicilium) yet they hunted all the Coun- 
trey over, and for the expedition of their hunting voyages, they burnt up all the underwoods in 
the Countrey, once or twice a yeare, and therefore as Noblemen in England possessed great 
Parkes, and the King, great Forrests in England onely for their game, and no man might law- 
fully invade their Propriety : So might the Natives challenge the like Propriety of the Countrey 
here. 

It was replied unto him : (!) that the King, and Noblemen in England, as they possessed 
greater Territories then other men, so they did greater service to Clmrch and Common-wealth ; 
(ii) That they employed their Parkes, and Forrests, not for hunting onely, but for Timber, and 
for the nourishment of tame beasts, as well as wild, and also for habitation to sundry Tenants ; 



[69] 

(iii) That our Townes here did not disturb the huntings of the Natives, but did rather keepe their 
Game fitter for their taking ; for they take their Deere by Traps, and not by Hounds ; (iv) That 
if they complained of any straites wee put upon them, wee gave satisfaction in some payments, 
or other, to their content ; (v) We did not conceive that it is a just Title to so vast a Conti- 
nent, to make no other improvement of millions of Acres in it, but onely to burnc it up for 
pastime. 

But these Answers not satisfying him, this was still pressed by him as a Nationall sinne, to 
hold to the Patent ; yea, and a Nationall duty to renounce the Patent : which to have done, had 
subverted Ihe fiindameiitall State, and Government of the Cottntrey. 

(b) The second offence which procured his Banishment, was occasioned as I touched before. 
The M.agistrates, and other members of the Gencrall Court, upon Intelligen-:e of some Episco- 
pal!, and malignant practises against the Countrey, they made an order of Court to t.ake tryall 
of the fidelitie of the People (not by imposing upon them, but) by offering to thein an Oath of 
Kidelitic : that in case any should refuse to take it, they might not bctrust them with place of 
publick charge, and Command. This Oath when it came abroad, ho vehemently withstood it, 
ami disswaded sundry from it, partly because it was, as he said, Christ's Prerogative to have his 
Ortlce established by Oath : partly because an Oath was a part of Gods worship, and Gods 
worship was not to be put upon carnall persons, as he conceived many of the People to be. 
So by his Tenent neither might Church-members, nor other godly men, take the 0.ath, because 
it w.is the establishment not of Christ, but of mortall men in their office ; nor might men out of 
the Church take it, because in his eye they were but carnall. So the Court was forced to desist 
from that proceeding : which practise of his was held to be the more dangerous, because it 
tended to unsettle all the Kingdomcs, and Common-wealths in Europe. 

These were (as I tooke it) the causes of his Banishment : two other things fell in upon these 
that hastened the Sentence. [These Mr. Cotton goes on to specify — at a length which need 
not be here minutely followed — as being (i) the provocation given by his " heady and violent 
Spirit" in the Letters of Admonition to the Churches to which the Magistr.ates belonged, urg- 
ing the discipline of those Magistrates for their course about the Marblchcad land ;-'' and (ii) 
his subsequent renunciation of, and separation from his own Church, and from all the Churches 
in the Bay, with his preaching in his own house."" He then concludes]: Thus have I opened 
the grounds, and occasions, of his Civil! Banishment; which whether tliey be sandy, or rocky, 
let the servants of Christ judge.^ 

(2) Again, in criticising a statement upon the 38th page of Mr. Williams's 
Mr. Cotlons Letter Examined, etc., Mr. Cotton says ■."''" 

Here be many extenuations, and mincings of Iiis own carriage, and as many false aggrava- 
tions of Guilt upon his sentence of Banishment, .and the Authors of it. As : 

i. In that he was cut off, he and his, br.anch .and route, from any Civill being in these Terri- 
tories, because their Consciences durst not bow dawne to any worship, but what they bclccve 
the Lord h.ad appointed : Whereas the truth is, liis Banishment jjrocccdcd not against him, or 



'"Sec rt«/^ p. 3^. I P.ilcnt with much vclicmcncy"; (b) he " vclicmenlly 

*'•' Sec (t/W^ p. ^0. f wiUutood" ihc Oatli; (c) he " .iRgrnv-ucd iho former 



** £.-ir]icr in the 8.imc RepJy^ lie Ind Rlanccd .nt lt)c 
subject in the s.imc spirit as in the more eIabor.itc view 
Civcn above. He tlierc says, (.1) ho opposed "the King's 



jcllousics" by becoming "incensed" about the Marble 
head land, etc. [4J. 
^'"Ibid, 113. 



[7o] 



his, for his own ref usall of any worship, hit for seditious opposition against the Patent, and against 
the Oath offidclitie offered to the people. 

ii. That he was subject to the Civill estate, and Lawes thereof, when yet he vehemently 
opposed the Civill foundation of the Civill estate, which was the Patent : And earnestly also 
opposed the Law of the general! Court, by which the tender of that Oath was enjoyned ; and 
also wrote Letters of Admonition to all the Churches, whereof the Magistrates were members, 
for deferring to give present Answer to a Petition of Salem, who had refused to hearken to a 
lawful! motion of theirs. 

{3) Further we find Mr. Cotton testifying thus : ""^ 

The casting of liim [Mr. Williams] out of the Commonwealtlr, sprung not from his difference 
in matters of Church Discipline. It was well Ivuoune that whilest he lived at Salem, he neither 
admitted, nor permitted, any Church Members, but such as rejected all Communion with the 
Parish Assemblies, so much as in hearing of the Word amongst them. And this libertic he did 
use, and might have used to this day, without any disturbance to his Civill, or Church-Peace 
(save onely in a way of brotherly disquisition); but it was his Doctrines and Practises which 
tended to the Civill disturbance of the Common-wealth, together with his heady and busie pur- 
suite of the same, even to the rejection of all Churches here. These they were that made him 
unfit for enjojing Communion either in the one state, or in the other. 

(4) Still fi:rther, Mr. Cotton says again, in another place,'"^ tliat the reasons 
for which the Court proceeded against Mr. Williams, were : 

offensive and disturbant Doctrines, and Practises against the Patent, and against the oath 
of fidelitie ; and against the Magistrates delay of the Petition of Salem, which he himselfe 
knoweth. 

{5) And, once again, he reverts to the subject in a Letter sent to England, 
and printed there in 1641, as follows:""" 

It has been reported unto you (as it seemcth) that we receive none into our Church-fellowship 
untill they first disclaime their Churches in England as no Churches, but as limbs of the devill ; 
now, I answer, God forbid, God forbid : It is true, one Sheba of Bickry"'* blew a Trumpet of 
such a seditious Separation ; I meane one Mr. Williams late Teacher of Salem, but himselfe 
and others that followed stiffely in that way, who were all excommunicated out of the Church 
and banished out of the Common-wealth ; for men in that way , and of such a spirit, are wont 
not onely to renounce the Churches of England, but ours also, because we held communion 
with them in England in the things which are of God ; see therefore how unjustly wee are slan- 
dered for renouncing communion with you, as is mentioned, and for it they themselves are pun- 
ished in ottr Co7ntnon~uealth, c^wsur^d in our CA\^rc\\tSyfor snch Antichristian ex-orbittires : by 
this you may see the Objection clearely answered. 

I joause here only to call attention to the fact that whether, as in the last 



2" /</<;, 64. 

^'^ A Coppy 0/ a Letter of Mr. Cotton of Boston, in 



New England, sent in A nsiuer of certetine Objections 
made against tltsir Discipline and Orders there, etc. i. 
'"■' See the 20th chapter of 2d Samuel, passim. 



[71] 



extract, referring to the intensely separative spirit possessed and exercised by 
Mr. Williams, which had so much to do in bringing the public feeling up to 
that pitch which demanded action against him ; or describing the reasons of 
law and equity on which the Court acted in decreeing banishment ; Mr. Cot- 
ton's testimony is clear and absolute to the point that Mr. Williams's opinions 
in regard to toleration — while they were known and were unpopular — had; 
nothing whatever to do with the conclusion reached. I cannot forbear to add 
that if Mr. Cotton be correct in his understanding and representation of the 
facts, Mr. Williams was by no means the first, or the last, man honestly to mis- 
take the intent and quality of judicial action bearing heavily, and, to his think- 
ing, unjustly upon himself. 

4. Gov. Winthrop is our next witness, and we have Roger Williams's own 
cotemporary and abundant endorsement of him, as a prudent, candid and loving 
one.^'' I find six different references from his pen to the subject. 

(i) His statement in his Journal, under date of S-18 July 1635, of the things 
at that time laid to Mr. Williams's charge, is this :■'' 

That, being under question before the m.igistracy and churches for divers dangerous opin- 
ions, viz. (i) that the magistrate ought not to punish tlic breach of the first table, otherwise than 
in such cases as did disturb the civil peace ; (ii) that he ought not to tender an oath to an luire- 
generate man ; (iii) that a man ought not to pray with such, though wife, child, etc.; (iv) that a 
man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament nor after meat, etc.; and that the other 
churches were about to write to the Church of Salem to admonish him of these errors ; not- 
withstanding the church had since called him to the office of a teacher. 

Nothing, it will be observed, is here said about the matter of the Patent, or 
about the subject of hearing the ministers of the Parish assemblies, because the 
minute covers not the entire subject of points of difficulty, but only so much as 
came under discussion at that particular session of the Court. 

(2) His statement, in the same Journal, of the proceedings at the final trial, 
is this:"^ 

He was charged with the said two letters, viz.: th.at to the churches complaining of the mag- 
istrates for injustice, extreme oppression, etc.; and the other to his own church, to persuade 
them to renounce communion with all the churches in the bay, as full of antichristian pollution, 
etc. He justified both these letters, .ind maintained all his opinions, etc. 



^'■Within .1 year after Ills banishment wc find Wil- 
li.nm^ wrilin;; to liini thus: " Mucli honored Sir; the 
frequent exi>criencc of your lovinj; c.ire, rc.ndy & open 
toward mc (in wliat your conscience lialli permitted), .is 
allso of lh.it excellent spirit of wiscdoinc & prudence 
whercwitli the Father of Lights h.ith endued you, em- 
bolden mc to request a word of private advise, etc.** 
[4 flfa^J* Hut, CoU, vi : i36.] A short time after we 



find him [/i/V^ 333] saying: '*I therefore now tlianck- 
fully .icknowlcdgc your wiscdomc & gcnttcnei in rcceav- 
i 11;; so lovingly my late rude & foolish lines: you bearo 
with foolcs gladly, because you arc wise. I still waito 
vpon your louc and f.iythfullncs, etc" Many like ex- 
pressions migiit be quoted. 

«■"!: i6j. 

"i: 171. 



[72] 

There is surely no evidence here that any emphasis was placed in the last 
and decisive session of the Court, on the tenet as to toleration ; if (under this 
"all his opinions'') it came up at all. 

(3) At the time of Mr. Williams's flight from Salem, Gov. Winthrop writes, 
as follows;-'^ 

He had so far prevailed at Salem, as many there (especially of devout women) did embrace 
his opinions, and separated from the churches for this cause, that some of their members, going into 
England, did hear the ministers there, and when they came home the churches here held comtimnion 
luith them. 

This puts the stress of the matter, practically, solely upon the subject of Sep- 
aration ; as if that were the sum and substance of " his opinions." 

(4) Near the middle of the following April, occurs another mention, to this 
effect :-" 

The Church of Salem was still infected with Mr. Williams his opinions, so as most of them 
held it unlawful to hear in the ordinary assemblies in England, because tlieir foundation was anti- 
christian, and we should, by hearing, hold communion with them ; and some went so far as they 
were ready to separate from the Church upon it. 

(5) In the letter to Endecott, to which reference was made in its place,-'" 
Gov. Winthrop says : 

The things which will chiefly be layd to his charge are these : (i) that he chargeth Kinge 
James with a solemn public lye ; (ii) that he chargeth both Kinges,"*' & others, with blasphe- 
mye for callinge Europe Christendom, or the Christian world, &c.; (iii) for personal application 
of three places in Rev. to our present Kinge Charles ; (iv) for concludinge us all heere to lye 
under asinne of unjust usurpation upon others possessions, etc. 

It is true that this had relation to the initial stage of the controversy, and 
yet it is remarkable, if the whole contest were fought with reference to " soul- 
liberty," that no mention of it finds place here. 

(6) After the action which was had two years subsequent to Vlx. Williams's 
case in reference to Mr. Wheelwright, Gov. Winthrop felt called upon to pre- 
pare a formal argument in defence of the order of Court. In this he refers to 
the earlier trial, thus :™ 

If we conceive and finde by sadd ex]5erience that his [a Christian man's] opinions are such, 
as by his own profession cannot stand with cxternall peace, may we not provide for our peace, 
by keeping off such as would strengthen him, and infect others with such dangerous tenets ? 



^■^IhiJ,\: 176. 
'-'^lbid,\: 1S6. 
^^ See aiiie, p. 2 



=si Ey these " Kinges" he me.ms, of course, James I. 
and Charles I. 

^'-Li/e ami Letters of John WiiUhrcp, ii : 1S6. 



bi] 



and if we findc his opinions such as will cause divisions, and make people looke at their magis- 
trates, ministers and brethren as enemies to Christ and Anticlirists, etc. ; were it not sinne and 
unfaithfullness in us, to receive more of those opinions, which we allrcady finde the cvill fruite 
of: Nay, why doc not those who now complayne joine with us in keeping out of such, as well 
as formerly they did /« exl>dliitg Mr. Williiwts for /lie lite, though lesse ddiigerous ? 

I find in all these statements no evidence that Gov. Winthrop difTered from 
Mr. Cotton in his understanding of the reasons which governed the Colony in 
its treatment of Mr. Williams, and no suggestion that any doctrine of "soul-lib- 
erty " came to the front in the way of affirmation on the one side, or denial on 
the other. 

5. I pass to Samuel Gorton, who landed in Massachusetts within a few 
months after Williams left it ; who was himself a first-class disturber of com- 
munities on religious questions ; who had experience enough of trouble in 
regard to his own rights of conscience to make him appreciative of whatever 
had been done before him in the same line by another, and who seems himself 
to have been a firm believer in toleration.^ In his invective against New Eng- 
land men and things published in London, in 1646, entitled Simplicities Defence 
Against Seven-Headed Policy, etc., he says that, on landing at Boston, he under- 
stood ■-** 

that they had formerly banished one Master Roger Williams, a man of good report both 
for life and doctrine (even amongst themselves,) y<)r dissentiug front them in some foinls about their 
Church Governmeut ; and that in the extremity of winter, forcing him to betake himselfe into the 
vast wilderness, to sit down amongst the Indians in place, by their own confessions, out of 
all their Jurisdictions, etc. 

As Gorton was not dependent upon the Massachusetts men for his sole 
account of the matter, but almost immediately made Williams's acquaintance, 
pitched his own clearing near the place where he was, and, before all ended, 
gave the Welsh exile quite too much of the pleasure of his company ;-" it seems 
a little strange that, printing ten years after, he should attribute Williams's ban- 
ishment entirely to this same matter of Separation — which seems to be the 



**^ Witness the following, wri:" i lines 

prclimin.iry lo his Simfilieilies lirjirttce, etc. '. 
SuMpcnd your judgcincnt, nit your skill in gone, 
And let the Jiicli^c of all, his Circuit piiuic apace, 
Vi'lio comes nut to destroy — such Is Mis procci 
And let that man his own destruction ^c, 
Vi\\a breaks that Tailll with God, cannot be peec'd bytheet 
Ceaso then your prosecutions, seek yce to doc ;:ood; 
Saye life in any, in Cluirch waves spill not lilnod: 
In Christ, if you consider, the Covetiant of Cod. 
^oule find that all compulsion la Dou;;ht but thai Nim-rod. 



He kindly cxpKii;! ^vord he intends 

" a mccr huntingof men, to worry yourown kindc, etc" 

"^^ Simt>licities De/ettee, etc. i. TIlis h.-i9 been repub- 
lished by Mr. Force, [Tracts, etc. iv. J.'ind by the R. I. 
Hisl. Soc. ICo/t. vol. ii 1 

^*^ Williams, in i6,i<', accused him of "bewitciiing and 
bemadding poor Providence*' wiilt "niiclcane .iiul foull 
censures," and of "uncivil and intininan practices," and 
complained that almost all Providence "suck in hii poi- 
son." \Put>. Nar. etui. v\: 141.] 



[74] 



natural interpretation of "dissent" as to "points of church government" — if 
the real cause thereof had been "soul-liberty." 

6. Naturally next comes Gov. Winslow, whom Williams stj'les " my antient 
friend," and " a great and pious soule.""^ In his Uypocrisie Unmasked, etc., 
printed in London in 1646, he notices, and replies to, the assertion of Gorton 
cited above, as if it did not do justice to his knowledge of the case that Williams 
should be represented as having been sent out of the jurisdiction for Separation, 
or for anything short of sedition. His version of the matter is :^'' 

In answer take notice : I know that Mr. Williams (though a man lovely in his carriage, and 
whom I trust the Lord will yet recall) held forth, in those times, the unlawfulnesse of our Let- 
ters Patents from the King, &c.; would not allow the Colours of our Nation ; denyed the law- 
fulnesse of a publique oath, as being needlesse to the Saints, and a prophanation of God's 
name to tender it to the wicked, etc. And truly I timer heard but he was dealt with for these, 
and such like faints: however I am sorry for the love I beare to hira and his, I am forced to 
mention it, but God cals mee at this time to take off these aspersions. 

The drift and force of this cannot be mistaken ; and, with Winslow's impar- 
tiality as a Plymouth man, and his opportunites to know the facts, as a friend 
of both parties, it adds conclusive weight to what has gone before. 

7. .My next witness is Thomas Edwards ; a Cambridge divine, a voluminous 
and earnest participant in the religious debates of his time, and an intense and 
envenomed hater of all who labored for that toleration of which he had an 
almost insane horror.^ In his AiHapologia (1644), intended as an answer to the 
" Apologeticall Narration" of Goodwin, Nye, Sympson, Burroughs and Bridge, 
he insists that if they give up some "strong church government" in England, 
diey will find it needful to do as they had done in New England, where :^ 

Not having Classes, Synods, that have authoritative power to call to account and censure 
such persons [offenders], were necessitated to make use of the Magistrates, and to give the more 
to them, a power of questioning for doctrines, and judging of errors, and punishing with im- 



^ Letter [i Mass. Hist. Coll. i- 276, 277.] Tlie fact 
of Winslow's specially friendly feeling toward Williams, 
finds illustration in the circumstance mentioned by Wil- 
liams in this same letter, that he : '" kindly visited me at 
Providence, and put a piece of gold into the hands of 
my wife for our supply.'* 

^' Hypocrtsie Uttmaslied^etc. 63. 

2*3His Ga;/i-rfr;;rt (1646) is a remarkable manifesta- 
tion of his diligence in collecting facts which he supposed 
to be important, and of his earnestness of feeling, espe- 
cially against "soul-liberty." "A Toleration," s.ays he, 
in it, [121] "is the grand designe of the Devil, his 
Master-peece and chiefe Engine he works by at this time 
to uphold his tottering Kingdome; it is tlie most com- 



pendious, ready, sure way to destroy all Religion, lay all 
was:e, and bring in all evill ; it is a most transcendent, 
catholique and fundamental! evill : . . as original 
sin IS the most fundamentall sin, all sin ; having the seed 
and spawn of all in it : So a Toleration halh all errors in it, 
and all evils ; it is against the whole streame and current 
of Scripture both in the Old and New Testament, both 
in matters of Faith and manners, both generall and par- 
ticular commands, etc . . and therefore the Devil 
fol:ows it night and day, working mightily in many by 
writing Dooks for it, and other wayes; all the Devils in 
Hell and their Instruments being at work to promote a 
Toleration." 

'^'' AiUapologia, etc. 165. 



[75] 

prisonment, banishment ; and they found out a pretj' fine distinction to deceive themselves 
with, and to salve the contrariety of this practice to some other principles, that the Magistrate 
questioned and punished for these opinions and errors (which now for want of Ecclcsiasticall 
discipline and censure they knew not what to doe with) not as heresies and such opinions, but 
as breaches of the civill peace, and disturbances to the Common-wealth — which distinction if 
the Parliament would have learned from you, and proceeded upon, they might long agoe have 
put doune all your Churches and Congregations, and justly have dealt with you as the Magis- 
trates in Ne-M England did with Mr. Williams and the Antinomians, Familists and Anabaptists 
there, and yet have said they punished you not for your consciences^ nor bccatcse of such opinions, 
but because your opinions, ways, and practises were an occasion of much hurt to the Common-wealth, 
a breach of civill peace, etc. 

This declaration is valuable simply as showing that it was understood among 
well-informed persons of that time in the mother country, that the reason 
published abroad for the banishment of Mr. Williams, was the danger alleged 
to threaten the civil State of New England from his opinions. And that Mr. 
Edwards conceived this to be " a prety fine distinction," does not diminish the 
importance of that fact ; while we may be very sure that the slightest suspicion 
on his part that the banishment was suffered in the cause of toleration, would 
have kindled him, at once, into a heat of hate. 

8. Robert Baillie, of Glasgow, confirms the statement just made as to the 
current English opinion of this case, in his Dissvasive from the Errours of the 
Time, (1645). -^^ refers in his various writings more than once to Mr. Williams, 
and seems to have been familiar not only with his history, but with him."™ He 
says : ^' 

Let men only look over to the fruits of their principles in New England. Not many yeares 
agoe there, upon a very small, and so farrc as I know very groundlesse suspition, to have some- 
what of their Government altered by the King contrary to their P.atcnt, they did quickly pur- 
chase and distribute Armes among all their people, and exact of everyone an Oath for the 
defence of their Patent against all impugncrs whosoever : Mr. Williams opposition to this Oath, 
as he alledgeth, was the cheife cause of his banishment. 

9. Nathaniel Morton, Secretary and liistorian of Plymouth Colony, and who 
had some special facilities for accurate knowledge of the facts, makes the fol- 
lowing condensed statement of the affair : ^^ 

the prudent Magistr.atcs . . seeing things grow more .and more towards a general divis- 
ion and disturbance, after all other means used in vain, they passed a sentence of lianishment 
against him out of the Massachuscts Colony, as against a disturber of the pecue, both of the Church 
and Common-wealth. 

10. William Hubbard, although he did not complete his General History of 

** Sec this affirmed in the extract from his .Cf//*yj, ^/f. I ^^ Dissvasive, etc. 126. 
h note 351 ««/<. I '"Mew England' J iVemorialt(iMK)) So. 



[76] 

Neiv England until some five and forty years after the banishment of WilHams 
had taken place, did not lack the best advantages for information ; having been 
a member of the first class graduating, soon after, at Cambridge, and having 
personal intercourse with most of the prominent actors in that transaction, with 
many original manuscripts of that day in his hands.^" He devotes considera- 
ble space ^ to Mr. Williams and his career, which is largely filled with extracts 
from Winthrop, Morton, Cotton, and Williams himself. He says : 

Forasmuch as sundry have judged hardly of New England for their proceedings against him, 
by a sentence of banishment, it is thought needful, in this place, to give a more particular account 
thereof to the world. [He then goes on, very nearly in Mr. Cotton's words, ^'' to declare that 
Mr. Williams's action about the Patent, and that concerning the Oath of Fidelity, were the two 
real causes of the Court action ; exaggerated and hastened by his letters to the churches, his 
renunciation of his own church and of all the others, and his setting up a separate service ; and 
concludes thus]: Thus men of great parts and strong affections, for want of stability in their 
judgments to discern the truth in matters of controversy, like a vessel that carries too high a 
sail, are apt to overset in the stream, and ruin those that are embarked with them. 

Mr. Hubbard adds another testimony which is worthy of consideration, as 
showing in what light the authorities of Massachusetts regarded the banish- 
ment, when looking back upon it from a distance of nearly ten years. Having 
occasion, in 1644, to take Boston in his way from England, Mr. Williams 
brought a letter signed by His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, and others, 
asking for him permission for passage through Massachusetts. Mr. Hubbard 
says : 

Upon the receipt of the said letter the Governor and Magistrates of the Massachusetts found, 
upon examination of their hearts, they saw no reason to condemn themselves for any former 
proceedings ag.ainst Mr. Williams ; but for any offices of Christian love, and duties of humanity, 
they were very willing to maintain a mutual correspondency with him. Bid as to his dangerous 
principles of Separation, unless he can be brought to lay them down, they see no reason why to 
concede to him, or any so persuaded, free liberty of ingress and egress, lest any of their people 
should be drawn away with his erroneous opinions. 

Why this emphasis still upon Separation, if he had been banished for his 
advocacy of universal toleration — whose spirit is as nearly the opposite of 
Separation as may well be conceived .'' 

II. Joshua Scottow, less known than many others, deserves, nevertheless, our 
utmost confidence as a witness. Coming hither in the year after the banish- 
ment ; an eminently devout man ; one of the founders of the Old South Church ; 

^^'ite: Proceedings Mass. Hist. Soc.\%'i%, 3=1; Sib- 1 '^ Gen. Hisl. N. Etig. ioz-2\z. The second extract 
ley's Biographical Sketches of Graduates 0/ Harvard is on p. 349. 
Univ. etc. 1 : 57. I ^'' See p. 67 ante. 



b7^ 



and Chief Judge of some of the Courts of the then Province of Maine ; he was 
the author of two tracts, one of which was A Narrative of the Fhmting of the 
Massachusetts Colony, etc. In this he says :™ 

This Heterodoxy was preached publickly ; that there was no Communion to be held with the 
Church of England ; and that if any of our Church-members had transiently heard a Minister 
which Conformed to the Church of England without declaring Repentance for it, he was to be 
Excommunicated ; and that no Communion was to be held with any Unregeneratc Person ; that 
they ought not to Pray or Crave a Blessing at Meals before Wife or any Relation Unconverted, of 
which Conversion their Opinion was the Test ; and not only so, but that the Oath of Allegiance 
to his Majesty was not to be taken, nor was it lawful to take any other kind of Oath, because no 
Power [was] to bo Settled by Oath but Christ's Kingly Power only; and that our Pattent ought 
to be sent back to our King, nor ought we to have to do therewith. Thus was New England 
Attackt by Satan ; and this from an Eminent Preacher, noted for Piety in his Life and Conversa- 
tion, as his strictest Observers characterised him. This Child of Liglit [ Roger Williams] walked 
in Darkness about Forty Years, not only by Rejecting the Church of England and its Baptism, 
but his second Baptism also. 

Here again it is to be marked that the subject of "soul-liberty" is not even 
named, in connection with Mr. Williams's history in Massachusetts, by one the 
bent of whose mind was such as apparently to have awakened his special atten- 
tion to that question. 

12. Cotton Mather, who, though he himself belonged to the ne.\t generation, 
yet lived, in a sense, in that of Mr. Williams in his distinguished ancestors on 
both sides; in his Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) speaks as if from deci- 
sive knowledge in regard to this trial.-" Referring to several of Mr. Williams's 
singular opinions he says : " these things were, indeed, very Disturbant and 
Offensive, but there were Two other things in his Qui.xotism, that made it no 
longer Convenient for the Civil Authority to remain unconcerned about him." 
Proceeding to explain that these were his position with regard to the Patent, 
and the Oath, he continues : 

t/iese Crimes, at last, procured a Sentence of Banishment upon him. [To this he adds a refer- 
ence to Williams's action when the churches dealt with him, and concludes]: the Effect was, 
that he renounced them all as no Churches of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whereupon the Court 
ordered his Removal out of the Jurisdiction. 

13. Governor Thomas Hutchinson is the last witness I shall call.™ Though 



'*'4 Ahsi. ffiit. Call, iv: 395. 

'*• Hool; vii : 7-1 r. 

** He is the List who cin be regarded as, in any sense, 
approxim.itcly a co(cinpor.iry. The judRment of later 
liislorians Iws its value mainly in the way of comment 
u|x>ii, and dcduclioos from, ihc earlier authorities. 1 cite 



a few words to indicate the judgment of the most promi- 
nent of them — in the order in which they wTote. 
Xeal (t;}o); "banished tlic Mjm. Colony as a Dis- 
turber of the I'e.Ke of the Church and Conunon- 
wcaltli." {Itiit, X. Eti^.'w i^j. ] 
Ca/UnJ^r (tjy/): [enumerating the matters about the 



[78] 



he was but a youth when Cotton Mather was an elderly man, he could rightly 
claim that his ancestors "for four successive generations had been principal 
actors in public affairs;"-^ he was connected with the Mathers by marriage ; he 
amassed a great collection of manuscripts bearing upon early New England 



Patent, the Oath, Separation, etc.] "for these 
things, he was at length banished the Colony, as a 
disturber of the peace of the Church and Com- 
monwealth. [Historical Discourse. Coll. R. I. 
Hist. Soc. iv: 72.] 

Douglass (1753): "because of his Antinomian, Fami- 
Hsiical, Erownist, and other fanatical Doctrines, 
though in otiier respects a good man, he \vas ex- 
communicated and banished from Mass. Colony 
by their Assembly or Legislature, as a Disturber 
of the Peace of the Church and Commonwealth." 
[Summary ^eic.'x'. 77.] 

Backus {i-j -J -f): "By the first and last of this account it 
is evident that the grand difficulty they had with 
Mr. Williams was, his denying the civil magis- 
trates right to govern in ecclesiastical affairs-'* 
[Hist. N. Eng. i: 6g.] 

Morse and Parish {1S04): "On account of these senti- 
ments [the Oath, the Patent, the civil magistrates, 
etc.], and for refusing to join with the Massachu- 
setts churches, he was at length banished the Col- 
ony, as a disturber of the peace of the Church and 
Commonwealth." [HisU N. Eng. (ed. iSoS) S6.] 

Graham (1S27): "Had Williams encountered the sever- 
ities to which the publication of his peculiar opiil- 
ions would have exposed him in England, he 
would probably have lost his senses ; the wiser 
and kinder treatment he experienced from the 
Massachusetts authorities was productive of haji- 
piercffects.'* [History of U. S, {0.6.. 1856)1: 163.] 

Baylies (1S30): "Tlie magistrates, fearful of distrac- 
tions amongst the people, aftqr attempting, wiUi 
much earnestness, to reclaim him, proceeded at 
length to banish him from the colony * as a dis- 
turber of the peace both in the Church and Com- 
monwealth.*" [Hist. Mem. o/Plym. Col. \: 269.] 

BaTU:rc/i{i^^j^\ [after more than seven pages of grace- 
ful rhetoric, in which he adroitly manages to evade 
most of the main points at issue]: "let there be for 
the name of Roger Williams at least some humble 
place among those who have advanced moral sci- 
ence, and made themselves the benefactors of man- 
kind." [Hist. Col. o/U. S. (ed. iS4o)i: 377]- 

Bradford {,\%-^^'. "They were inexcusable in their treat- 
ment ofRogerWilliams, who was an honest, though 
an eccentric character . . merely for his honest 
independence of opinion driven out of the colony 
in the midst of a severe winter." [Hist. Mass. 33. ] 



Hildreth (1849): "This threat of schism filled up the 
measureof his offences." [Hist. U.S.'w 228.] 

^tf//(iS55): " It is not easy to perceive how our General 
Court could have abstained, consistently with their 
solemn engagement to seek for the preservation 
and highest good of the State, from dealing with 
Williams as they had." [Eccles. Hist. N. E/ig. 
i: 232.] 

Barry (^i%^l): "it was because his opinions differed 
from the opinions of those among whom he lived, 
and were considered by them as dangerous and 
seditious, tending to the utter destruction of their 
community, that he was a sacrifice to honest con- 
victions of truth and duty." [Hisi.Mass. i: 241]. 

Oliver (iS^G): "Roger Williams was cast out into tlie 
wildeniess, because he taught that it was unlawful 
even 'to hear the godly ministers' of the Church 
of England." [Furitaii Covnuotitvealth, 192.] 

Ellioit{\%i-])\ [after considerable fine writing]: "it is 
difficult to see how they could resist Williams's 
position," but "it must be remembered that it is 
not uncommon for religious controversy to de- 
bauch the intellect and to paralyze the affections, 
and that Williams was himself injured by it." 
[.V. Eng. Hist, i: 205] 

Palfrey {^\%^^', "'The soimd and generous principle of 
a perfect freedom of the conscience in religious 
concerns, can scarcely be shown to have been in- 
volved in this dispute. . . The questions 
which he raised, and by raising which he pro- 
voked opposition, were questions relating to polit- 
ical rights, and to the administration of govern- 
ment. . . There is no reason whatever to doubt, 
that, correctly or othenvise, they [the Court] con- 
sidered themselves to be proceeding in the way 
which the safety and well-being of the Colony, 
as a civil community, required. . . In fact, the 
young minister of Salem had made an issue with 
his rulers and his neighbors upon fundamental 
points of their power and their property, includ- 
ing their jiower of self-protection against the 
tyranny from which they had lately escaped. . . 
But it was not to be thought of by the sagacious 
patriots of Mass, that, in the great work which 
they had in hand, they should suffer themselves to 
be defeated by such random movements." [Hist. 
N. Eng. i: 413, 4M. 4t5t 4i7-] 
^^ Hist. Mass. {ed. 1795)1: Preface^ywi. 



[79] 

history, and became the first comprehensive narrator thereof; so that what he 
says claims always careful and respectful consideration. Naturally, in the per- 
spective inhering in the time when he wrote (publishing in 1764), he dwarfs 
the trial of Mr. Williams, and its results, to little more than a single page. 
What is remarkable about his generalization, is, that, reducing the w-hole case 
to a single issue, he makes that issue — not one of toleration, but — one un- 
named before, in that connection. He says : 

But what gave just occasion to the civil power to interpose, was his influencing Mr. Endecot, 
one of the magistrates and a member of his church, to cut the cross out of the King's colours, 
as being a relique of antichristian superstition. . . Endeavours were used to reclaim him, but 
to no purpose ; and at length he was banished the jurisdiction. 

Studying carefully now all this evidence, I find it conducting the mind with 
irresistible force straight toward one conclusion. It is true that Mr. Williams 
did hold, in an inchoate form, and had already to some extent advocated, that 
doctrine of liberty of conscience, with which his name afterward became prom- 
inently identified. It is true that the language of the official sentence is sus- 
ceptible of a construction which might include this among his "newe and dan- 
gerous opinions." It is true that Mr. Williams did himself claim that it was 
so included. But it appears to be also true that he himself never claimed more 
than this; and that, in his own view, his banishment was only incidentally — 
in no sense especially — for that cause. While the careful and repealed state- 
ments of Mr. Cotton, with their reiterated endorsement by Gov. Winthrop, go 
to show that Mr. Williams was mistaken in supposing that the subject of the 
rights of conscience had anything whatever to do with the action of the Court 
upon his case ; action, in reality, solely taken in view of his seditious, defiant, 
and pernicious posture toward the State. This, it appears from the testimony 
of Mr. Gorton, and of Gov. Winslow, supported by that of Secretary Morton, 
of Mr. Hubbard, of Judge Scottow, of Cotton Mather and of Gov. Hutchinson, 
was the general understanding had of the matter by the New England public 
of that day ; while Edwards and Baillie speak to the same point from over sea. 
And, as I am aware of nothing purporting to be proof to the contrary, other 
than the (necessarily biased, and jorcsumably ill-informed and partial) opinion 
of Mr. Williams himself, before cited ; I cannot help thinking that the weight 
of evidence is conclusive to the point that this e.\clusion from the Colony took 
place for reasons purely political, and having no relation to his notions upon 
toleration, or upon any subject other than those, which, in their bearing upon 
the common rights of property, upon the sanctions of the Oath, and upon due 
subordination to the powers that be in the State, made him a subverter of the 



[So] 

very foundations of their government, and — with all his worthiness of charac- 
ter, and general soundness of doctrine — a nuisance which it seemed to them 
the)- had no alternative but to abate, in some way safe to them, and kindest to 
him ! 

Let it here be distinctly remembered that Roger Williams was, in 1635, a 
Congregational minister in good and regular standing ; and so remained with- 
out any taint of doctrinal heresy for months, almost for years, after his ban- 
' ishment ; so that he was not driven away because he was a Baptist. Nor was 
his offence, as so many seem to think, that he was too tolerant in spirit for 
his times ; for the most grievous thing about him, and that which clearly most 
exasperated his enemies, was that he was so intensely rigid in his principles of 
Separation, that almost two years after John Robinson's treatise Of ihe Lawfjtlnes 
of Hearing of the Ministers in the Church of England, "found in his studie after 
his decease, and now published for the common good," had seen the light, he 
refused even to commune with his own church, because it would not break off 
from communing with the other churches in the Bay — for that they would not 
decree that if their members, when now and then visiting home in Old England, 
should go inside the parish churches, and listen to the preaching of the Establish- 
ment, they must undergo Ecclesiastical censure on their return for so doing ! 

The intelligent reader will not fail to perceive that the question which I have 
been laboring to settle, is one solely of fact, and not of casuistr}' ; whether the 
General Court of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay did, or 
did not, banish Roger Williams for a certain alleged reason ; rather than 
whether they acted wisely in what they did, or whether he desen-ed banish- 
ment for any reason ? These are separate ranges of investigation. That which 
may furnish satisfactory^ reply to the former, may shed no gleam of light upon 
the latter. And ha\-ing disposed of the one, it is not my purpose to enter upon 
any conclusive discussion of the other. I can hardly close, however, without 
putting on record a few further suggestions which have come to me in the study 
of die literature of the case, and which are perhaps worthy of being noted as 
contributions to any exhaustive consideration of the equity of the subject 

I. All candid inquirj- must fairly weigh the true character of the plantation. 
I have shown that it was not an ordinarj- colony. It was a select setdement 
upon a vast, lonely, and almost empty continent, open on every side to the 
choice of other setders of different affinities. It was first of all intended to 
afford its undertakers an opportunity to live together in the free and unmo- 
lested enjoj-ment, and following, of certain spiritual ideas which were very dear 
to them. There can be no question that they were entrusted widi the legal pre- 
rogative to purge themselves of alien elements ; while their right in courtesy 



[8i] 



and justice to do so, stood essentially on the same ground on which a pleasure 
party of special friends may properly eject an incongenial intruder. And, that 
one of radically hostile opinions, under these circumstances, and with the 
world all before him where to choose, should persist in forcing himself upon 
them ; and, being resident among them, should spend his strength in decrying 
their fundamental principles, not merely, but in doing his utmost to cut the 
very bands by which their social order was held together ; was a thing as much 
more intolerable to them than would be a similar procedure to the Vineland 
settlement, or either of those close "communities" which now exist among us; 
as tlie necessary perils of an experiment in process of trial two centuries and 
a half ago under nearly every conceivable disadvantage, upon the edge of a sav- 
age wilderness, must overweigh the petty risks of a modern pleasure venture in 
die science of sociolog)-. And how long even Vineland would tolerate the 
presence of one who should disturb its peace in any manner kindred to that in 
which Roger Williams disturbed that of the Massachusetts Colony ; and how 
much the well-informed community would pity such a disturber upon his con- 
sequent ejectment ; I leave others to judge. 

2. Not less essential is some careful consideration of the essence of the man. 
It is difficult to look over the grand hights of the achievements, and the lofti- 
ness of the mature quality, of some who have filled large space in the public 
eye, to note minutely the follies of their early days. And there was so much of 
sweetness, wisdom, and true nobility in the adult development of Mr. Williams, 
as to make it hard for us to remember that he always had great faults, and that 
those faults were of a kind to make his immaturity uncomfortable to others. 
In itself, no student could desire to go back now to 

draw his frailties from their dread abode ; 

but if the justification of others become his inculpation, the truth must be 
spoken. It would be a curious study of character to follow exhaustively the 
traces he has left of himself upon the history of his time — in what he did and 
said, and wrote ; and in what others wrote to, and of him, and said about 
him.™ Those were days of free and rugged speech, when even the best of men 
sometimes allowed themselves to suspect and stigmatize the motives of others, 
and to employ bitter words in so doing ; and just allowance must be made for 
this. But after all due deduction, it will unquestionably be concluded tiiat 
Mr. Williams did somehow exceptionally provoke the censures of the good. 



***Ifindui>on my memoranda a considcr.iblc number 
of such " Icstimonics'' of \-arious cotcmpor.lrics in re- 
gard to him, and will trinMiribc here enough to indicate 
their qu.lhty: 



^fr. Cotton My;* *'ju(lic' . .■ - ^ -^^ 

church found him IoIk: '' ' 

[y?c//v, ^J: he says "the ju.._ " 

complained of tho "selfe-conccited, .in<f tinquicl, and 



[82] 



When he lived in Massachusetts, he was evidently a hot-headed youth,^^ of 
determined perseverance, vast energy, considerable information, intense con- 



unlambelike frame of his Spirit" [fl>:W, 5]; and lie af- 
firms that many were "grieved at the unmoveable stiffe- 
ness aiidheadinesse of his Spirit" [liiuf] ; at his "offen- 
sive Spirit and Way, both in Judgement and Practise" 
[Ibid, 30]. and "the rocky flintinesse of his selfc-confi- 
dence"and the " Iieady unruelinesse of his Spirit, and 
the incorrigiblenesse thereof by any Churcli-way" [fd/J]. 
He speaks also of "his usuall exorbitant Hyperboles" 
[Ibid^ O4] ; says his charges are "vehement and peremp- 
tory', and in a manner sorbonicall," and that he "ob- 
truded uijoii the Churches of Christ his unwritten ima;;- 
inations and censorious Decrees, as the very Oracles of 
God" [//';./, SO] ; and stigmatizes the "liberty and bo!d- 
nesse of his tongue in calumniations" [/^V/, 142]. So 
he says: "Mr. Williams is too too credulous of sur- 
mises and reports brought to him, and too too confident 
in divulging of them"[//'(7y c/ Con^. Chhs, Ciearcd-, 
etc. 55]; and I regret to add that once he says of Mr. 
Williams: "it is no new thing with him, to say I did 
that, which I did not." [Bloudy TcJicnt IVashcdyetc. 150.] 
William Coddiji^ton says Mr. Cotton called Mr. Wll- 
hams: "a Haberdasher of small Questions against the 
Power." [.V. E. Firebrand Quenched, -zifa.^ 

Jifr. /PV/z/Zirf/ thought him guilty of "jiresumption " 
as \veUas"errour" [yourttai, i: 122], yet Mr. Williams 
said he wrote to him: "Sir, we have often tried your 
patience, but could never conquer it"lLettert(r yohn 
Cotton, jr. Proceedings Jifass. Hist. Soc. 1S5S. 314.] 
Gov. B r ad/or d \\\o\x^\\. him "godly and zealous, having 
many precious parts, but very unsettled in judgmente" 
[Hist. Plyvt. riant. 310] ; and said he ought to " be pit- 
ied and prayed for," that the Lord would "shew him his 
errors, and reduse him into the way of truth, and give 
him a sctled judgment and constancie in the same." 
[/^/(/j 311]. Elder Breivster was afraid of him, and 
glad to have him leave Plymouth, " fearing that his con- 
tinuance amongst them might cause divisions," and fore- 
casting that "he would run the same course of rigid 
Separation and Anabaptistry which Mr. John Smyth, the 
Sebaptist, at Amsterdam, had done." [Morton's A'. 
Eng. Mc7n. 78.] Sir Willia7n Martin \vrote most af- 
fectionately of him to Gov. Winthrop, but said : "he is 
passionate and precipitate, which may transport him into 
error, but I hope his integrity and good intentions 
will bring him at last into the waye of truth, and con- 
firmc him therein." [H :dchinson Papers, 106.] Cotton 
MatJier %:i\di. he had "a Windmill In his head " [jI/*?^- 
iialia, vll: 7]; said he was "a Preacher that had less 
Light than Firelnhlm" \Il>id'\; styleshls opinions "tur- 
bulent and singular" [/5/i/],and calls him a " Hot-headed 
Man" and ''an Incendiary." [Ibid,^.'\ Hid}bard'\\\\rCvi.% 
"he had a zeal, and great pity It was that it could not be 



added, according to knowledge" [G<r«. Hist. A". Eng. 
202]; says "the more judicious sort of Christians, in 
Old and New England, looked upon him as a man of 
a very self-conceited, unquiet, turbulent and uncharlta- . 
blesi>irit" [/i/i/,203]; calls his zeal "overheated" [Ibid, 
205], and had heard that "tlicy were wont to say In Essex, 
where he lived, that he was divinely mad," [Ibid, 206.] 
But whosoever wishes to see abuse come down in show- 
ers, may be advised to examine the way in which the 
mild and peaceful Quakers free their mind concerning 
Roger, in the A'ezu England Firebrand Quenched of 
Geo. Fox and John Eurnyeat (1679). The very title- 
page promises "a Catalogue of his Railery, Lies, Scorn 
and Elasphemies, and his temporizing Spirit made man- 
ifest, " and the 4SS quarto pages that follow quite redeem 
tliat promise. Two or three extracts of his " Neigh- 
bour-tliese-3S-years's" letter, will show its general quali- 
ty : "he must have the Ordering of all their Affairs, or 
else there would be no Quiet Agreement amongst them" 
[247]; "that which took most with him, and was his 
Life, was, to get Honor amongst Men, especially amongst 
the Great Ones" [Ibiif] \ "he was too forward in spread- 
ing False Reports abroad " [Ibid, 24S] ; " though he pro- 
fessed Liberty of Conscience, and was so zealous for it 
at the first coming home of the Charter, that nothing in 
Government must be Acted, till that was granted ; yet he 
could be the Forwardest in their Government to pros- 
ecute against those that could not Join with him in it: 
as witness his Presenting of it to the Court at New- 
port." [R. Scot, Ibid, 247.] WilHant Coddington con- 
tributed to the same book the following : " I have known 
him [R. W.] about 50. Years — a meer Weather-Cock, 
Constant only in Unconsfancy. . . One while he is a 
Separatist at New Plymouth, . . another time you 
may have him a Teacher, or Member of the Church at 
Salem, . . against the King's Patent and Autliority, 
. . and anothertlmehels Hired for Money, and gets a 
Patent from the Long Parliament ; . . one time for 
Water-Eaptlsm, Men and Women must be plunged into 
the Water ; and then throw it all down again, etc." [Ibid, 
246.] — With ail this may be compared the summarizing 
of a writer of the present century, of his character: "a 
stubborn Brownist, keen, unpliant, illiberal, unforbear- 
ing and passionate ; seasoning evil with good, and error 
■with truth." [Grahame, Hist. U. S.'\: 166.] 

3^1 It appears as if Winthrop — who knew him espe- 
cially well — supposed him to be but about twenty-five 
years old, when he was banished ; at any rate such is the 
inference which I draw from an expression In the earli- 
est letter from Williams to Wintlirop which has been pre- 
served : " among other pleas for a young councellour 
(which I feare will be too light in the ballance of tho 



[83] 



victions, a decided taste for novelty, a hearty love of controvers}', a habit of 
hasty speech with absolute carelessness of consequences, and a religious horror 
of all expediency ; whose logical instincts and whose mobile sensibilities acted 
and reacted upon each other with intensifying power ; whose convictions of 
moral obligation were as likely to be the result of sudden flashes of feeling as 
of calm and well balanced consideration ; and whose e\'es were so intently 
fixed upon a great ideal line of duty stretching onward through the far future, 
and upward toward the judgment seat, as to withdraw his consciousness largely 
from the path that was under his feet, and so to permit him to stumble into 
entangling inconsistencies which might have been avoided if his attention had 
been more recalled to the practical obligations of the hour. He forgot, too, 
that God's ships seldom have a wind fair enough to speed with a flowing sheet 
straight into port ; and that the most pious seamanship must often manifest 
itself in sailing close-hauled as near toward the desired point as may be, and in 
getting, in the face of adverse gales ever and anon well about from the star- 
board to the lar-board tack, and the reverse ; while the highest, devoutest skill 
of all may sometimes show itself in laying to, in the face of a storm which, for 
the time being, forbids all progress. John Quincy Adams happily characterized 
him as "conscientiously contentious."™' Equally felicitous is Prof. Masson's 
phrase describing him as "the arch-Individualist."^' 

With all, were an abiding patience under trial, and meekness toward reproof; 
a calm courage, a noble disinterestedness and public spirit, and a predominant 
good temper in every strait, and toward every opponent, which were the crown 
and glory of his remarkable character ; and which — abating, to be sure, a little 
of the "modum" — well entitled him to the eulogy which Lucan gave to 
Cato:=*' 

hi mores, hxc duri immota Catonis 

Secta fuit, servare modum, fm(5mqiie tenere, 

Natunimque sequi, patrixquc impendere vitam, 

Nee sibi, sed toti gcnitum se credere mundo. 

It is not, necessarily, a hyperbole to say that the better, the more devout — 
and Mr. Williams was devout, " the people being, many of them, much taken 
with the apprehension of his godliness"''" — such a man might be ; the more 
dangerous, under certain circumstances, his influence might become. 



Holy One), you argue from as in a Church Elder ; " 
taken in connection with the fact that he goes on to 
reply (i) th.il he [R. W.J is not a Church Elder, and (3) 
that he is "in the daycs of my vanitic neerer vpwards of 
JO then jj." (4 Afast. Hist. Coll. vi : 1S4.I 



»"} ^falS. Hill. Call. \x: 106. 

^"^ Lift 0/ yohn Milton^ and Ifistary 0/ kit Timt^ 
ii ; 600, 
*** Lucan, PharsiUiA, ii : 3S0. 
*** Winthrop*» 7<M<r«^ i : 175. 



[84] 

3- It may be well, moreover, for the student who desires to go to the bottom 
of the subject of the banishment of Mr. Williams, to expend a little thought 
upon the question whether the importance of the transaction itself has not been 
overestimated and overstated. Clearly the action of the Court, at the time, 
notwithstanding the local excitement at Salem, made small general sensation.^ 
It was merely the renewed exercise, for cause, of a power repeatedly before 
asserted.""' In the February following, the event w-as lumped with some petty 
troubles in the church at Lynn, and with the existing scarcity of corn, as occa- 
sioning the proclamation of a fast in the Colony.™^ Thomas Lechford, w'ho 
published his Newes from New England 'm. 1642, although he speaks of Wil- 
liams, says nothing of it. Capt. Edward Johnson, in the Wonder- Worki/ig 
Providmce of Sions Saviour in New England, in 1654, makes only slight and 
obscure reference to this, although he devotes considerable space to the dis- 
turbances occasioned by Samuel Gorton and Mistress Hutchinson. Quaint 
Cotton Mather — with an obvious suggestion — entitles his chapter which is 
mainly devoted to Mr. Williams and Samuel Gorton, " Little Foxes.''^"' Dr. 
Backus was the first of our historians to develop the modern idea of the vast 
significance of the trial, and he was writing " A History of New England with 
particular reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists." While 
those biographers of our day who have acted on the hints which he gave, and 
drawn attention to that rude court-room at New Town on the 9-19 Oct. 1635, 
as if it were one of the focal points of modern history, — Knowles, Gammell, 
Elton and Underwood — have all been Baptists. On the whole, perhaps Dr. 
Palfrey is nearer right, when he styles the disturbance produced by it, " limited, 
superficial, and transient," and goes on to add :''" 

Had it not been for later transactions, which revealed him in more favorable lights, and for 
the connection of his exile with the origin of a State, that exile, instead of taking the place in 
history in which it presents itself to us, might have been recorded simply as the expulsion of 
one among several eccentric and turbulent persons. His controversy speedily narrowed down 
to a merely personal dispute; not a half-score of friends followed when he went away, nor were 
they of a character to show that he inspired confidence in the best and soberest men ; scarcely 
a larger number of persons who remained behind adhered to his peculiarities ; and the return- 
ing waters presently closed over the track his dashing bark had made. 

It is the son of Sirach who says : "" " there is an e.xquisite subtilty, and the 
same is unjust ; and there is one that turneth aside to make judgment appear." 



3*^ I have called attention [see note 246 ante] to the 
untrustworthy character of the only statement which 
I have observed, making against the view taken above. 

^^ See p. 14 ante. 



!»inVinthrop's7oarm7/, i: iSi. 
30^ Magnalia-, Book \-ii : chap. 2. 
'•" Hht. .V. Eng. i : 501. 
^^^ Ec<:Usiasticus,'U3i'. 25. 



[85] 



4. It is indispensable, further, that one note the temper of those times. For 
half a century there had been a religious commotion in England which had 
effectually stirred up the masses of the people, and in the general confusion, 
dangerous elements had now and then manifested themselves. Most adult New 
Englanders could then remember the Gunpowder plot, and shared that intense 
and stinging hatred of Poper}^, as politically synonymous with treason, as well 
as odious in its superstitions, which has not even yet died out of the hearts of 
the London populace ; whom one sees still fiercely handling their effigies of 
Guy Fawkes on the 15th November."^- One hundred years before, a terrible 
fanaticism had raged over Germany and the Netherlands, which had left in the 
general conservative mind a vague, yet vivid, horror of all claims to special 
light from heaven, all particularly loud-voiced accusations of public sin, and 
especially all plans looking towards civil reconstruction, and all denunciations 
of the regular magistracy, and the usual sanctions of justice ; as being — all ills 
in one — Anabaptism !"^^ The settlers of Massachusetts, as a class, were mod- 
erate reformers ; as anxious, on the one hand, not to wreck their enterprise and 
imperil its reputation among the sober-minded at home, by excesses in the name 
of liberty;^'* as, on the other, to avoid being forced back into tlie old con- 
formity, or — still further back — into the clutch of the Man of Sin.^*^ We have 
seen, moreover, that Mr. Williams's advent, and busy activity in Massachusetts 
affairs, had taken the plantation in an evil time in respect to the fact that the 
arrogant Court of England was just then looking toward it with some intent 



*'-It maybe questioned wlicllicr the fcelint* against 
Romanists, which our fathers had, was not due more to 
political than to religious considerations. It had conic 
to be common in England to regard a Romanist as, al- 
most necessarily, a traitor aj;ainst the Crown, and a con- 
spirator — the more dangerous, in fact, the more quiet 
might be hisseeming — ngainstit. Stlden said: "Am- 
sterdam admits of all religions but Papists. . . The 
Papists where c're they live, have another King at 
Rome. etc. ( Tab!c- Talk (1685), Arber's reprint, 87 ] 

"■■*" Wc arc accused of Hgidness to such as differ from 
us in matters of religion. To this wc say that, from the 
first settling this plantation, these hetcrodoxes of Fami- 
lism, Anabaptism, and of late Quakerism, have been 
loolccd ujjon by the K<^>tl'y bcrc as great errors, and the 
promoters of iliem disturbers of peace and order. Thast 
aw/nl and trtuuntious motions 0/ that sort 0/ f>eopU in 
Cervtauy^and ilsewhere, hath sufficiently alarmed all 
pious and prudent men to provide a defcnsativc against 
them." {Letter 0/ Gov. Lez'^r^tt^ftn/. {10-20 May 1O7 3) 
to ^fr. Boyle. Birch's Life of Hon. Rob. BoyU^ 456.] 

•""Democracy 1 do not conceyvc that ever God did 



ordeync as a fitt government eythcr for ChuVcli, or Com- 
monweath. If the people be governors, who shall be 
governed? As for monarchy, and aristocracy. \.his idea 
of Congregationalism made it, essentially, the latter], 
they are both of them clcarely approoved, and directed 
in Scripture; yet so as rcfcrrelh llic sovcraigntie to 
Himselfe. and settcth up Theocracy in both, as the best 
forme of government in the Commonwealth, as well as in 
the Church.'* Sjjohn Cotton^ to Lord Say ami Seal, 
Appendix. Hutchinson's ///i^. Afass. i: 437.] 

"'"'It was then scarcely ten years since all fears tliat 
Prince Charles — now reigning king — would make a 
Si>ani5li marriage, had been put at rest ; and, in the con- 
dition of affairs then existing, no wise man could deny 
that such a turn of the tide as should throw England 
back (so far as her imlitical and official-religious relations 
might go) into the condition of a Roman Catholic conn- 
try, was among the i>os!.ibiliiies; and I think the careful 
reader of New England history will be now and then 
reminded that many of the Icadin.^ mindi oi the colony 
were wise enough to keep that, and its probable relations 
to public affairs here, in memory 



[86] 



against its charter ; that disaffected persons, who had been sent home for the 
colony's good, -were doing their utmost to play into the hands of the King by 
accusing the settlers of intending rebellion, of proposing entire and absolute 
separation from the mother country, of habitually railing against the State, 
Church and Bishops, and of revolutionary and anarchical behavior, in general. 
Only by remembering that at every step the chief actors in Mr. Williams's case 
would feel themselves compelled to inquire what the eifect of all was likely to 
be in London, can one hope to arrive at any entirely fair judgment upon the 
quality of their action."^*^ 

Preeminently is it essential that the dread, and almost horror, with which a 
general toleration of religious beliefs was then conscientiously regarded by most 
good men, be recalled ;^^^ because it is conceded on all hands that Mr. Wil- 
liams was already to some extent a believer in, and an advocate of this doc- 
trine ;^^^ although, as we have seen, the subject entered only in the most unim- 
portant manner, if at all, into the conflict of opinion which led to his removal. 



^^■^The remark of the interesting anonymous \\Titer to 
Gov. Winthrop, soon after this banishment, has great sig- 
nificance in this connection : " your disclayming of Mr. 
Williams's opinions, & your dealing with him soe as 
we heare you did, tooke off much preiudice from you 
with vs, & hath stopt the mouths of some." [4 Mass. 
Hist. Coll. vi: 445.] 

5^^ What was tlien thought in England of toleration, 
has been already indicated in the extract from Edwards's 
Cang^mna, before cited [see note 2SS ariU]. That the 
colonists here had much the same opinion, is well known, 
and that they were prepared to act upon that judgment 
in civil things seems probable from Win'hrop's state- 
ment that the obstinate maintenance of such opinions, 
"whereby a church might run into heresy, apostacy, or 
tyranny, and yet the civil magistrate could not inter- 
meddle," would be ground for public action. \yonrnal^ 
i: 163.] Dr. George E. Ellis has stated what I conceive 
to be the fact on this subject with admirable accuracy. 
"To assume," he says, " as some carelessly do, that when 
Roger Williams and others asserted the right and safety 
of liberty of conscience, they announced a novelty that 
was alarming, because it was a novelty, to the authorities 
of Massachusetts, is a great error. Our Fathers were 
fully informed as to what it was, what it meant; and 
ihey were familiar with such results as it wTOUght in their 
day. They knew it well, and what must come of it ; and 
they did not like it; rather, they feared and hated it. 
They did not mean to live where it was indulged ; and, 
in the full exercise of their intelligence and prudence, 
they resolved not to tolerate it among them. They iden- 
tified freedom of conscience only with the objectionable 
and mischievous results which came of it. They might 



have met all around them in England, in city and coun- 
try, all sorts of wild, crude, extravagant and fanatical 
spirits. They had reason to fear that many whimsical 
and factious persons would come over hither, expecting 
to find an unsettled slate of things, in which iliey would 
have the freest range for their eccentricities. They were 
prepared to stand on the defensive." [Lecture on Treat- 
ment cf Intruders and Disscjitients by the Founders of 
Mass. ^ etc., m Lowell Lectures by Members 0/ Mass. 
Hist. Sac. S4.] 

2'^ I find no proof that Mr. Williams, at the time of 
his residence in Massachusetts, had advanced to the 
holding of the full doctrine of liberty of conscience, 
which he afterwards avowed, and — subsequently modi- 
fied. Tlie germ of it appears in his idea with regard to 
the " first table ; " but it is not clear that he himself had 
then accepted it in all its length, and breadth, and con- 
sequences. Tlie leisure which he had in the wilderness, 
after leaving Salem, seems to have borne fruit, especially 
in that direction ; and to have led him on to a position 
unoccupied before. But the claim that Mr. Williams 
was, in any sense, the originator, or first promulgator, 
of the modern doctrine of liberty of conscience, though 
often made, is wholly without foundation. Robert Drown 
— the founder of the Drownists — distinctly advocated it 
as early as 15S2 — or from fifteen to twenty years before 
Williams was born. [See his Booke -which slu^veth the 
Life and Manners 0/ all True Chrisiians, etc. 26; 
Treatise on Reformation IVithout Tarry iytg for Any .^ 
etc. 12.] Mr. Vq\\.\.Ecc. Hist. -V. Eng. i: 294] calls at- 
tention to the action of the Diet of Augsburg, in 1555, 
to the effect that "no attempt shall be made toward ter- 
minating religious differences, except by persuasion and 



[87] 



5- It would be well, also, that some consideration be given to the necessit}% 
and the alternative, then existing, into which Mr. Williams himself had forced 
the Company. Matters had been pushed by him to such a pass that, so fiir as 
his influence extended, all were really standing on the -very edge of chaos. 
Had he been permitted to remain, and been able to carry out his views, it is 
not easy to see how some grand catastrophe could have been averted. The 
patent would have been surrendered to the King with repentance and humilia- 
tion that any use had ever been made of it;"'^ which would have dropped the 
bottom at once from under all commercial foundations, destroyed all land-tilles, 
and disorganized business among them in every department ; while in the 
existing condition of the royal mind, they could have hoped for no redrcssive 
grant, or legislation. The administration of the Freemen's and Resident's 
Oath^ would have been abrogated ; and the way thereby opened to a disinte- 
gration of civil affairs rivaling in disastrous completeness that which would 
have been wrought upon their commerce by the other. In a religious point of 
view, their Congregational liberality would have been transmuted into an 
unlovely, unreasonable and bitter Separatism ; which would have made the 
colony odious, as well as ridiculous, in the eyes of all intelligent and high- 
minded men, even of that day ; in that it would insist on disfeilowshiping every 
New England church which should decline to excommunicate one of its own 
members, who, revisiting Old England, should drop in to hear a sermon, even 
from the godliest rector, in an Established church, without avowing his repent- 



conference," and the fact that this was the principle of 
Menno, who died in 1561. It 13 clear, moreover, that 
Sir Thomas More developed the principle as early as 
1516. In the second liook of his U'to^ia(\ quote from 
Ralphe Robinson's translation of 1556, in Mr. Arber's 
admirable reprint) he speaks ns follows: " Firste of all 
he [Kyng UtopusJ made a decree, that it should be law- 
ful! for eueric man to fauourc and folow what religion he 
would, and that he mightc do the best he could to bring 
other to his opinion, so that he did it peaceablic, gentelie, 
quietly, and soberlie, without hasiic and contentious re- 
buking and inuehing a;;ainst other. If he could not. by 
fairc and Kcntlc s]>cchc, induce them vnio his opinion, 
yet he should vsc no kinde of violence, and rcfrainc 
from displeasaunte and seditious woordcs. To hini that 
would vehemently and ferucntlyc in this cause striuc and 
contcndc, was decreed banishment or bondage. This 
lawe did Kyngc Uiopus make, not only for the mainte- 
nauncc of peace, which he saw through continiiall con- 
tention and mortal haired vttcrly extinguished: but 
also because he thnught this dccric should make for ihe 
turihcrauoce of rcligioo." [msJ ^''>** likely, how- 



ever, Williams got the idea from Henry Jacob's Hum- 
ble Sitpplication for ToU ration, etc, ^ in 1609, or Leon- 
ard r»usher's PUa /or Liberty 0/ Co}t5cieitce-,\x\ 1614. 
Sec for a rapid glance at the rise and growth of this 
idea, Masson'syI//7/(7w, iii: <)%-ii<^. 

^''■•Perhaps sufficient evidence of this statement has 
been already offered in the body of the discussion which 
has gone before. I add, however, the following, which 
gives its testimony in a condensed form. "This, there- 
fore, [the falsehood and injustice of the P-itcni] he 
pressed upon the Magistrates and People, to be hum- 
bled for, from time to time, in dayes of solcmnc Humil- 
iation, and to rctumc the Patent back ag.iine to the 
King." \Reply to Mr, IV'iUiams his Exam, etc. 27.] 

*»**By his Tenenl neiihcr mi^ht Churdi-mcmbcrs, 
nor other godly men, take the Oath, because it was ttie 
establishment, not of Christ, but of mortalt men in their 
office ; nor might men out of the Church take it, because, 
in his eye, ihcy were but carnalt. . . Whi^h was held 
to be the more dangerous, because it tended to unsettle 
all the Kingdomes and CommoQ-wcalthes tn Europe." 



[88] 



ance of the act, as of a sin, on his return.^-^ While that most hateful and dan- 
gerous form of the interaction of Church and State which Mr. Williams- — in 
spite of all his philosophies — had entered upon, in endeavoring, through the 
medium of the discipline of the churches to which they belonged, to compel the 
members of the General Court to modify their action in regard to the Marble- 
head land f" endangered an excitement, and an overturning, in those churches, 
quite as much to be dreaded as any calamities likely to ensue in other depart- 
ments of the public welfare. 

The irresistible fact which confronts the honest and thorough inquirer into 
the minute history of that time, a fact which cannot be ignored, nor explained 
away, is that the teaching and influence of Roger Williams — to use the care- 
ful language of John Quincy Adams — were " altogether revolutionary.""^ Our 
fathers felt themselves reluctantly compelled to choose between his expulsion, 
and the immediate risk of social, civil and religious disorganization. To say 
otherwise is to confess an amount of ignorance, or a degree of prejudice, suffi- 
cient to disqualify one from forming any useful opinion upon the subject."-* 

6. In this connection it is impossible to overlook the marked kindness with 
w'hich Mr. Williams was treated by the ]\Iassachusetts men. They were very 
patient with him under circumstances eminently calculated to exhaust patience. 
When complaint had been first made against his teaching, his letter of apology 
was generously received."^ And when, some ten months after, the Court were 
informed that he had broken his promises, and renewed the obnoxious and dan- 
gerous teachings, nearly half a year was still allowed to lapse before he was 
brought to their bar to answer. Even then two months more passed by before 
any formal trial. That trial ended in the express adjournment of the whole 
subject, through three further months, to the next General Court ; in the hope 



s;i " W'hich he, discerning, renounced communion with 
the Churcli of Salem, pretending they held communion 
with the Churches in the Bay, and the Cliurchcs in the 
Bay held communion with the Parish-Churches in Eng- 
land, because they suffered their members to heare the 
word amongst them in England, as they came over into 
their native Countrey, etc." [Ibid, 30.] 

^-- See p. 40 auie. 

s=3« His hostility to the foundations of the Massachu- 
setts Colony was neither confined to speculation, nor 
merely defensive. It was altogether revolutionary. He 
denied utterly the validity of the Colonial Charter. He 
refused to take the oath of allegiance, and, in retaliation 
of the remonstrances of the Massachusetts magistrates 
against his election, and of llieir withholding a grant of a 
lot of land, for wliich his church [I think it was the town] 
had petitioned, he prevailed on that church to wnite let- 



ters of admonition and of acciisation against' the mag- 
istrates, to the churches of which they were members. 
This, in the temper of the times, could be considered 
in no other lii^lit than instigation to rebellion. At the 
next General Court, Salem was disfranchised till an 
apology should be made- This brought to a crisis the 
continued ei^stence of the Massachusetts colonial gov- 
ernment itself. The people of Salem submitted, apolo- 
gized, and returned to their allegiance. The insurrec- 
tion was subdued, tranquility restored, — all was quiet, 
^ printer alrocem animujit CatonisJ*^^ \TJu Ne'jjE7tg* 
land Confederacy 0/ 1643, in 3 Mass. Hist. ColL 
ix: 20S.] 

^* I desire to say this with all due reverence for one of 
the newspapers before cited. [See note \ ant€.'\ 

^-^See Wintiirop's Journal^ i: 122, 151, 157, 162, 171, 
175- 



[89] 



that he would be brought to ''give satisfaction." At the final hearing he was 
tendered still another month's additional delay ; was labored with, at length, by 
one of his peers in the ministry in the vain endeavor to persuade him to aban- 
don his positions; and was then granted six additional weeks — which weeks 
were subsequently lengthened into months""'*^ — before the requisition of fmal 
departure. It was only from a necessity induced by his own point blank viola- 
tion of all the conditions on which postponement had been accorded, that his 
leave to remain was cut short in January. Nor was he even then " driven from 
the society of civilized man, and debarred the consolations of Christian sympa- 
thy . . to find among heathen savages the boon of charity which was refused 
at home,"^-' — a "solitary pilgrim,""''^ in "the sternest month of a New Eng- 
land winter,"^^ under "great hardship."^ It was the purpose of the magis- 
trates to send him by ship comfortably home to England ;^' not as a criminal 
for trial, but as a British subject; who having proved incompatible here, might 
take other chances of usefulness and happiness there.^ Evading this by sud- 
den flight, it was still at his option to have sought the near shelter of the Plym- 
outh Colony, where aforetime he had found welcome, and which was never 
addicted to banishing people ; or to have turned his steps northward toward 
white men, nascent institutions, and comfortable, albeit as yet rude, firesides 
on the banks of the Cocheco, or under the shadows of Agamenticus/'^ 



^<^Wintlirop says that lie received leave to stay "till 
tlie sprinj;-" [i: 175] If il>c first of April be counted 
as the bcginnins of spring, from the 9-19 October to i-io 
April, would be but little more than a week less than six 
months. 

K' Arnold's Hist. R, I.'w 39. 

5sa Ellon's /.//<-, 3 1. 

*=°Gammcirs jL//*-, 57. 

530 Knowlcs's Memoir, 7.1. Judge Job Durfce, in his 
pleasant (if not great) poem, entitled IVkaicheer^ elabo- 
rated a view much like that of the auihor's, just quoted 
above. The fidelity witli which his poetry follows in the 
track of history, may he conjectured from the following 
extract, which depicts Williams's endeavor to explain to 
Waban the cause of his exile: 

"My brethren, then, hid pcncculion fled, 

And much I hoped, with lliom a home to flndi 
But to our common dul whene'er we prayed, 
BIy womhipuccmcdill-iiuircd lo their mind) 
It dilTcrcd grefttly from their rtwn, they Bnldi 

Their nn^cr kindled, mid, vrilli npet-eli unkind, 
Tliey drove me from my funily nnd *hed, 
To rove on exile In thi* t^mpext dread." 

[Canto 1: Ixvill. ComyUU Worti, efc.SO.J 

>" Winthrop's 7ot"'«^A > : »75' There is no particle 
of warrant for Dr. Bcntley's declaration that the magis- t 



tratcs intended to kidnap Williams and transport him, 
but friends infonned him, so that he could escape; nor 
for the equally unfounded and unjust statement that his 
liberty to remain until spring, "was only a snare laid for 
him." fi Alass. Hist. Coll. vi: 249.! 

^- I am not sure that I am right in interpreting John 
Quincy Adams's assertion [3 Mass. Hist. Coll. ix: 209]: 
" they would have sent him to England yOrd /r^i/y?ir 
ot/ier-Tvisc sez'cre, etc.,'' as indicating his belief that the 
idea of the government was to remit Williams — as they 
had done some others — to an English tribunal for judg- 
ment. If he meant that, I believe he was mistaken, for 
I am aware of no evidence of such intent, on their part. 
Prof. Masson puts it thus: "It was proposed to kidnap 
him in a friendly ^vay, and ship him back to England. 
This was a process to which the colonists had resorted .15 
the simplest and really the kindliest, in one or two pre- 
vious cases of refractory obstinates." [Li/t 0/ John 
MiUon,etc. ii: 5''.2.I 

'■'■^"In the meanc time, some nf his friends went to 
the place appointed by liimsclfe before hand, lo make 
provision of housing, nnd other necessaries for !iim, 
against his coming; othc^\^ise lie might have chosen lo 
have gone cither Southward to his acquaintance at Plym- 
outh, or Eastward to Pascatoqiic, or Aganimticus.** 
\ Reply to Mr. Williams hiz Exam, etc, S.) 



[9o] 



Mr. Gammell intimates an injustice in the proceedings against Mr. Williams, 
on the ground that "there appears to have been no examination of witnesses, 
and no hearing of counsel;"^ and this is echoed by Prof. Elton.^ It is aston- 
ishing that intimations so unfounded should come from gentlemen of such intel- 
ligence. One would think they could neither have read the cotemporary 
account of the trial, nor studied the history of the time. No witnesses are 
needed where the defendant pleads guilty to all charges, and seeks to justify 
the acts complained of ; while the employment of counsel, in the modern sense, 
to aid in any trial, was then, and for years after, a thing unknown in the 
colony.^' 

I insist, then, that forbearance and gentleness of spirit toward Mr. Williams, 
did characterize the proceedings of the Governor and Company of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay. It was his bitterly separative spirit which began and kept alive 
the difiiculty, — not theirs.^" He withdrew communion from them — not they 
from him."'"'^ In all strictness and honesty he persecuted them — not they him ^^"^ 
just as the modern " Come-outer/' who persistently intrudes his bad manners, 
and pestering presence upon some private company, making himself, upon pre- 
tence of conscience, a nuisance there; is — -if sane — the persecutor, rather 
than the man who forcibly assists, as well as courteously requires, his desired 
departure."'*" 



^^ Li/e^ 49. 

^^'Li/ct 27. 

^''"There was no Atoumey to be had in those dayes 
tliat I knowe of." \MS. Letter 0/ Sam. Gorton (of 
date 1669) in my possession.] The " Cody of Liberties " 
had ilie followiiij; (the 26th): "every man that findeth 
himselfe unfit to plead his owne cause in any Court, 
shall have Libertie to imploy any man against whom the 
Court doth not except, to helpe him, Provided iie give 
him noe /ce.,or re-ward, for his paincsJ''' [3 Mass, 
Hist. Coil, viii: 220.] Lechford was himself a solicitor 
of Clement's Inn, but while in Boston he was forbidden 
to plead "any man's cause vnlesse his owne," [-'/(WJ. 
Col. Rec. i: 270]; and he gave the following advice to 
the colonists touching that subject: "take heede, my 
brethren, despise not learning, nor the -worthy Laivyers 
0/ either g^o-ivn, lest you repent too late." [Plaitie Deal- 
ing^2.%.\ Winlhrop moreover says, in 1641, "no advo- 
cate being allowed." {^joumaly ii: 36]. See, further, 
Hon. Emory Washburn's Sketches 0/ the yudicial His- 
tory cf Mass. pp. 50-55. 

^'" It was we!! knowne that whilest he lived at Salem, 
he neither admitted, nor permitted, any Church-members, 
but such as rejected all Communion with the Parish As- 
semblies, so much as in hearing of the Word amongst 
them." [Refily to Mr. IVilliatns his Exam. etc. 64.] 



nr.3 « gjj. ^]^g truth is (I will not say I excommunicated 
you, but) I first withdrew communion from yourselves 
for halting between Christ and Antichrist, — the parish 
churches and Christian congregations, etc." [Letter 0/ 
R. W. to Rev. John Cotton, Jr., in Proceedings Mass, 
Hist. Soc. iSsS, 315.] 

^^" Nor is it to be forgotten, that, as to the narrow- 
ness which repels dissentients from sympathy and com- 
munion, it was Williams that maintained the exclusive 
side in this controversy, and the Magistrates and Min- 
isters that maintained the hberal side." [Dr. Palfrey, 
Hist. N. Eng. i : 420.] 

"Can we blame the founders of the Massachusetts 
Colony for banishing him [R. W. } from within their 
jurisdiction? In the annals of religious persecution, is 
there to be found a martyr more gently dealt with by 
those against whom he began the war of intolerance, — ■ 
whose authority he persisted, even after professions of 
penitence and submission, in defying, till deserted even 
by the wife of his bosom, — and whose utmost severity of 
punishment upon him was only an order for his removal, 
as a nuisance, from among them?" [John Quincy 
Adams, Tlie N. Eng. Con/ed. 0/ 1643, in 3 Mass. Hist. 
Coll. ix: 209.] 

***>Witliout intending in the slightest degree to cast 
any ridicule upon Roger Williams, I venture, in this 



[91] 



7- Once more, it may be suggested that the accurate investigation of this topic 
will duly note the pregnant fact that, in the course of his subsequent life, Mr. 
Williams was led to justify, in nearly every item, the treatment which he 
received from Massachusetts. This may be specifically seen in the following 
particulars. 

(i) Less than two years after his flight from Salem we find him writing to 
Gov. Winthrop for advice.'""" The occasion was some discontent which had 
arisen among the first settlers of Providence in regard to the foundation on 
which they stood. They had no patent, and yet it was needful, somehow, as Wil- 
liams said : " to be compact in a civill way & power."''"^ Mr. Williams conceived 
the idea of propounding "a double subscription ;" one for the masters of fami- 
lies, and another for the young men. And as to these he wanted Mr. Win- 
throp's judgment. The essence of the former was to be Ihe pledge: "from 
time to time to subiect our .selucs in actiue or passiue obedience to such orders 
& agreements as shall be made by the greater number of the present howse- 
holders, & such as shall be hereafter admitted by their consent into the same 
priviledge & covenant in our ordinarie meeting." The latter more briefly 
bound the 3'oung men, and others who migiit be inhabitants without being 
admitted to this company of householders, to subject themselves " in actiue or 
passiue obedience '" to such laws as that company might think fit to make. 
This company of householders practically corresponded to the company of free- 
men in Massachusetts ; and these young men, and others, occupied in Provi- 
dence, almost identically, the position which Mr. Williams himself, and all 
others who had never taken the Freemen's Oath, occupied in the Bay. And 
had it occurred to Mr. Williams two years before, that persons so situated 
ought to yield " actiue or passiue obedience ' to such " orders & agreements " 
as seemed wise to that majority with whom the responsibility of affairs rested; 
he would have been able to have remained comfortably at Salem, with the con- 
tent of many, and the sufferance of all. 



connection, to rccill to the memory of tliosc of my re.itl- 
en whose familiarity with "public chai^ctcrs*' runs back 
a few years, two venerable persons, whose "gift" lay 
largely in the interruption of public meetings — especially 
those of a particular character; and who again and 
again, in a limp state, had to be tugged out by main 
force. I refer to " Aunt Nabby Folsom," and '* Father 
Lamson." I think many persons felt — and had a rij;ht 
to feel — that those venerable and eccentric bores were 
guilty of rank persecution in the way in which they in- 
flicted titemselves upon certain assemblies; while tlicy 
(good souls) fancied themselves to be martyrs to — I 
know not what I 



*'" The letter bears no date, but it addresses Winthrop 
a3"Deputie Governor," which office he held from May 
1636, to May 1637; while internal evidence indicates 
that it was written soon after the settlement of Provi- 
dence, which is believed to have been in the summer of 
1636, and just before Endccott's Expedition again:;t the 
Pequols, which sailed late in August, or early in Sep- 
tember of the came year. So th.it the letter was proba- 
bly wTittcii late in July, or in the early i>art of August, 
1^36 ; or from eighteen to twenty months after its author 
exchanged his home at Salem for the courtesies — and 
discomforts — of the Stra/attts wigwams. 

"'This letter is in 4 Afcus. Hut. Coll. vi : 186. 



[92] 



It is a curious commentar)', which deserves to be noted here, upon the actual 
position of Mr. Williams's mind at this time upon that question of " soul-lib- 
erty " of which so much is made in his case, that in this formula of civil gov- 
ernment as thus proposed by him, nothing whatever is said upon that subject ; 
the clause " only in civill thinges," which was appended to it when actually 
adopted as the basis of the Providence Plantation, having been subsequently 
added.'""*" 

(2) Not long after we find Mr. Williams asserting, and seeking to exercise, 
the right to refuse to persons considered undesirable, permission to become 
residents at Providence. Under date of 8-18 March 1640, he wrote to Mr. 
Winthrop concerning Samuel Gorton, as follows:^ 

Master Gorton having foully abused high and low at Aquednick is now bewitching and 
bemadding poore Providence, both with his uncleane and foule censures of all the Ministers of 
this Country, (for which my self have in Christs name withstood him) and also denying all vis- 
ible and externall Ordinances [the very thing wliich Williams subsequently did himself] in 
depth of Familisme, against which I have a little disputed .and written, and shall, (the most High 
assisting) to death : As Paul said of Asia, I of Providence (almost) All suck in his poyson, as at 
first they did at Aquednick. Some few and my selfe viithstande his Inhabitation, and Towne- 
priviledges, without confession and reformation of his uncivil! and inhumane practises at Ports- 
mouth : ^" Yet the tyde is too strong against us, and I feare (if the framer of Hearts helpe not) 
it will force mee to little Patience, a little Isle next to your Prudence. ^° 

Possibly Mr. Williams underrated his influence, as it seems to be clear that 
Gorton, and not he, was the man eventually compelled to remove.^' 

(3) It is evident, again, that Mr. Williams and his company claimed, and 
exercised, the right to disfranchise any person who had been admitted to their 
number, whose presence and co-action proved to be, in their judgment, incom- 
patible with their prosperit}'. We happen to have the best possible evidence 
of this in the case of Joshua Verin. Of him Williams WTOte to Winthrop, 22 
May-i June 163S, as follows:^ 

Sir, we haue beene long afiicted by a young man, boysterous & desperate, Philip Verins sonn 



3<3 Compare Staples's account in A nmtts of tlie Town 
0/ Prmidencc, etc. [Coll. R. I. Hist. Sue. v: 39] with 
Williams's own draft, in his letter above cited. 

^* Sec the letter in Winslow's HypocrisU Unmasked, 
etc. 55. 

s^^It would appear from Morton [.V. Ens- IiTc7n. loS] 
tliat the difficulty at Portsmoutli, to which reference is here 
made, \vas mutinous and seditious "carriage :" *' there 
he and they carried so in outrage and riotously, as they 
were in danger to have caused Bloodshed, etc.'' 

s^o Prudence is the island in Narragansett Bay over 
against the mouth of Bristol harbor, and tlie passage 



through to Mount Hope Cay taken by the Fall River 
steamers ; and had been purchased for Winthrop, by 
Williams, of Canonicus, by deed dated 10-20 Nov. 1637. 

3*r '* Such was his [Gorton's] carriage at Plimouth and 
Providence, at his first settling, as neither of the Gov- 
ernments durst admit or receive him into cohabitation, 
but refused him as a pest to all societies." [Winslow, 
Hypocrisie UKittasked, etc. kS.'\ So he says again that 
Gorton: "was whipt and banished at Roade Island, for 
mutinie and sedition, in the open Court there: also at 
Providence, as/aciious ilure, etc." U^id, 66.] 

3^* 4 Mass. Hist. Coll. vi : 245. 



[93] 



of Salem, who, as he hath refused to heare the word with vs (which we molested him not for) 
this twcluc month, so because he could not draw his wife, a gracious & modest woman, to the 
same vngodlincs with him, he hath trodcn her vnder footc tyranically <S; brutishly : which she 
& we long bearing, though with his furious blows she went in danger of life, at the last the viaior 
vote of vs discard him from 02tr civill frcedome, or disfranchize^^zr. he will hauc justice (as he 
clamours) at other Courts, etc. 

It is worthy of notice that the reason given for thus casting this young man 
out of their company, was not that he was cruel and inhuman in the treatment 
of lier whom he had vowed to love and cherish ; but that he restrained her hb- 
ert}' of conscience."^^ As if his conscience had no rights, which, in t/i at place, 
were entitled to respect ! 

(4) Again, we discover Mr. Williams repeatedly assuming toward others, the 
very ground which, in Massachusetts, had been taken toward himself. 

a. In the case of "one vnruly person," concerning whom — probably in the 
spring of 1637 — he wrote to Mr, Winthrop tlius i""^^ 

Deare sir, (notwithstanding our differences concerning the worship of God & the ordinances 
ministrcd by Antichrists power) you hauc bene alwayes pleased lovingly to answer my boldnes 
in civill things: let me once more find favour in your eyes to gralifie my sclfe, Mr. James, & 
many, or most, of the townesmen combined, in advising what to say, or dpc, to one vnruly per- 
son who openly in tozuue vieeiin^ more then once profcsseth to hope for 6^ iong for^ a better govern- 
vient then the eountrey hath yety & lets not to particularize, by a generall Governour, &c. The 
whilc*^^ which such a speech, or person, Icvells at can be no other then the rasing of the funda- 
mentall liberties of the eountrey^ which ought to be dearer to vs then our right eyes. 



"*Gov. Winthrop [Journaly i: 2S2] a short lime 
after, throws further li^ht u[>on this case. He snys, under 
datcofij Dec. 16^3: " at Providence, also, the tlevil wns 
not idle. For whereas, at their first coming tluthcr, Mr. 
Williams and the rest did make an order, that no man 
should be molested for liis conscience, now men's wives, 
and children, and servants, claimed liberty hereby to go 
to all religious meetings, though never so often, or 
though private, upon the week-days ; and because one 
Vcrin refused to let his wife go to Mr. Williams so oft 
as slie was called for, tlicy required to have him cen- 
sured. iJut there stoo<l up one Arnold, a witty man of 
their own company, and withstood it, telling them that, 
wlicn he consented to ttiat order, he never ititendcd it 
should extend to the breach of any ordinance of God, 
such as the subjection of wives to their husbands, etc., 
and gave divers solid reasons against it. Then one 
Greene (who liad married tlic wife of one Dcggcrly, 
whose husband ia living and no divorce, etc., but only 
it was said, that he h.td lived \\\ adulter)', and liad con- 
fessed it) he replied, thai, if they should restrain tlicir 
wivct, etc., all the women in the countr>' would cry out 
of them, etc. Arnold answered him thus: Did you pre- 
tend to leave the Massachusetts, because you would not 



offend God to please men, and would you now break an 
ordinance and commandment 0/ God to please women? 
Some were of opinion thai, if Vcrin would not suffer his 
wife to have her liberty, the church should dispose of her 
to some other man, who would use her better. Arnold told 
them, that it was not the woman's desire logo so oft from 
home, but only Mr. Williams's, and others. In conclu- 
sion, when they would Iiave censured Verin, Arnold lold 
them that it was against their own order, for Verin did 
that lie did out of conscience ; and their order was, that 
no man should be censured for his conscience." Sta- 
])Ies's \Auiuils 0/ Proviti^ncc, etc. 23] gives, under date 
of 21-31 May 163S (ihc day before the date of Mr. Wil- 
liams's letter above), the following, as the vote passed in 
Vcrin's case: "Joshtm Vcrin, for breach of covenant in 
restraining liberty of conscience, shall be withcld the 
liberty of voting, till he declare the contrary." This 
was, certainly, an ingenious way of pulling it, and prob- 
ably proved effirctive ! 

»>».( MiXis Hist. Coll. vi: ^^3. 

*^' Mr. Williams uses this metaphor more than once in 
those of his letters which have reached us. He evi- 
dently refers to the white S[>ot in the center of a target 
at which arrows were shot. 



[94] 



Mr. Winthrop's answer to this has not come to light. If one could find it, 
surely it would prove the triumph of courtesy over impulse in the mind of its 
penman, did it not contain some not unclear allusion to that word of Paul : 
"Happy is he that condemneth not Iiimsclf in that thing which he alloweth."^ 

b. In the case of William Harris. Harris was one of those who had joined 
Mr. Williams on his first leaving Salem, ^ and had taken a somewhat promi- 
nent part in the early affairs of Providence.^ In, or about, 1657, he wrote a 
"booke," for which Roger Williams entered against him, at the General Court 
of Commissioners, which commenced to sit at Newport on the 19-29 May, 
1657, the rather serious charge of High Treason.^ When the Court met at 
Warwick on the 4-14 July following, by its order Harris read his "booke" 
in its presence, and Mr. Williams read his charge and his reply to the treatise. 
The following action then taken, will make it clear in what Harris had offend- 
ed, and what the attitude of his accuser, who himself had had some experience 
in the same line, now was:"'" 

Concerningc William Harris, his booke and speeches upon it ; we find therein delivered as 
for doctrine, haviitge much bawd Hie Scriptures to maintaine, that he can saj' /'/ is his conscience 
ought not to yield subjection to any human order amongst men. 

Whercis the sayd Harris hath been charged for the sayd booke, and words, with High 
Treason ; and inasmuch as we being soe remote from England, cannot be soe well acquainted 
in the laws thereof in that behalfe provided, as the State now stands ; though we cannot but 
conclude his behaviour therein to be both contemptuous and seditious ; we thought best there- 
fore, to send over his writinge with the charge and his reply, to Mr. John Clarke, desiringe him 
to commend the matter in our and the Commonwealth's behalfe, for further judgement as he 
shall see the cause require ; and, in the meane time, to binde the sayd Harris in good bonds to 
the good behaviour untill their sentence be knowne."' 

Whether the matter of this "booke " were any more treasonable, in itself, as 
an onslaught upon " human order amongst men ;" or any more dangerous in its 
probable influence upon the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 
in 1657, than Mr. Williams's own "treatise" against the Patent, and his other 
teachings, had been almost a quarter of a century before in the Bay — since 
neither of them have come down to us — must remain matter of conjecture. 
It will not be hard, I think, however, to conclude that in his treatment of Mr. 



'''-Rom. xiv: 22. 

*^Sec note 217 rt«/^, p. 56. 

'^See Staples's Amutls^ etc. 20, 33, 35, 40, 43, 78, 
112 ; R. I. Col. Kec. i : 20, 24, 27, 31, 29.), 361, 363, 364, 
428, 431, etc. 

»»;?. /. Col. Rec. i: 361. 

^^ Ih'tf^ 3(^. See, also, Staples's -4 m^wj/t 0/ Provi- 
dence. 1 48. 



^-^The bonds were Cy^- Nothing seems to have 
come of this sending to England. Harris remained 
active in alTairs, went to England four times, was cap- 
tured on the last voyage by a Barbary corsair, sold at 
Algiers as a slave, after scr\'itude of a year ransomed for 
$1200, and, broken down by his trials, died in three 
days after reaching London in the spring of 1681. [Ar- 
nold's //«/. R. I.\: 437] 



[95] 



Harris, and in the temper which he manifested towards him, Mr. Williams badly 
blotted his own character, while making it forevcrmore impossible even for his 
special apologists to deny that he therein endorsed the treatment which had 
been meted to himself by Massachusetts. 

Witness still further, as illustrating his spirit in this same thing, the following, 
written by Mr. Williams probably in the autumn of 1672 :^ 

He [W. Harris] was a Pretender in Old England, but in New, my experience hath told me, 
that he can be one with the Quakers, yea Jesuits or Mahumetans, for his own worldly ends and 
advantage. He is long known to haue put Scorns & Jeers upon the eminent Inhabitants o£ 
Town and Country. He hath been notorious for quarrelling, and challenging, and fighting, 
even when he pretended with the Quakers against Carnal Weapons ; so that there stands upon 
Record in the Town-book of Providence an Act of Disfranchisement upon him for fighting and 
shedding Blood in the street, ^'^ and for maintaining and allowing it (for ought I know) to this 
day. Then he turns Generallist, and writes against all Magist-ates, Laws, Courts, Charters, Pris- 
ons, Rates, &c., pretending himself and his Saints to be the Higher Powers (as now the Quakers 
do) and in publick writings he stir'd up the People (most seditiously and desperately threaten- 
ing to begin with the Massachusetts) and to cry out "no Lords, no Masters," as is yet to be seen 
in his Writing : this cost my self and the Colony much trouble. Then (as the Wind favoured 
his ends) no man more cries up Magistrates : then not finding that pretence, nor the People 
called Baptists^" (in whom he confided) serving his ends. He flies to Connecticut Colony 
(then and still in great Contest with us) in hopes to attain his gaping about Land from them, if 
they prevail over us : to this end he in publick Speech and Writing applauds Connecticut Char- 
ter and damns ours, and his Royal Majesties favour also for granting us favour (as to our Con- 
sciences) which he largely endeavours by writing to prove the K. Majesty by Laws could not do. 
My self (being in place) by Speech & Writing opposed him, & Mr. B. Arnold, then Governour, 
and Mr. Jo. Clark Deputy Governour, Capt. Cranstone and all the Magistrates, he was Com- 
mitted for speaking & writing against his Majesties Honour, Prerogative, & Authority : He 
lay some time in Prison until the General Assembly, where the Quaker (by his wicked, ungodly, 
and disloyal plots) prevailing, he by their means gets loose, and leaves open a door for any man 
to challenge the Kings Majesty for being too Godly or Christian, in being too favourable to the 
Souls of his Subjects against his Laws &c. 

c. In the case of the Quakers, also, there seems to be some evidence of the 
fact that Mr. Williams did not scruple to assume toward others an attitude 
resembling that which the Court of the Bay had taken toward himself. At 
any rate we find Richard Scott ^' affirming :^- 

Though he [R. W.] professed Liberty of Conscience, and was so zealous for it at the first 
Coming home of the Charter, that nothing in Government must be Acted, till that was gr.anted ; 



S58 Geo. Fox Dii^g'd out of His Burrotvcs^ etc. 206. 

3"0 See Staples's A jiiuils of Providence^ etc. 147. 

*"^A very strange \v.iy of speaking, if Mr. Williams 
considered himself a Baptist. 

^^ Richard Scott was tlic first householder to sign the 
first agreement concerning \vhich Mr. Williams consulted 



Mr. Winthrop [note 3.(2 «;//<-]. lie was assessed ^i 6s. 
Sd. in 1650, when the higliest tax was (13. Arnold) ^5, 
and Mr. Williams paid j^i 13s. .|d. ; w.is for a time a 
Baptist, and afterwards became a Quaker. [Staples*s 
Antuiis,etc. 35,39, 43, 7S, 409.] 
soa ^VViu England Fire-brand Quenched^ etc. 247. 



[96] 



yet he could be the Forwardest in their Government to prosecute against those, that could not 
Join with him in it : as witness his Presenting of it to the Court at Newport. *'' 

And when this would not take Effect, afterwards, when the Commissioners'"' were Two of 
them at Providence, being in the House of Thomas OIncy, Senior, of the same Town ; Roger 
Williams propounded this Question to them : 

Jy^ have a Peoph hire arnoiigit its^ luhich 'will not Act in our Gavernmeut ipith us : What course 
shall we take with them ? 

Then George Cart\VTight, one of the Commissioners, asked liim : What manner of Persons 
they were ? Do they live quietly and peaceably amongst you ? This they could not deny ; 
Then he made them this answer : 

If they can Gtrvern themselves, they have no lued of your Government. 

At which ihey were silent. 

(5) Still further, it is evident that Mr. Williams's own subsequent statement 
of his doctrine of Liberty of Conscience is adequate to condemn himself, and 
justify the Massachusetts men in the course which they reluctantly took. This 
doctrine we find him explaining, in Jan. 1654-5 — almost twenty years after 
he left Salem — to his fellow-citizens of the town of Providence, as follows :^ 

That ever I should speak or write a tittle, that tends to such an infinite liberty of conscience, 
[as that it is blood-guiltiness, and contrary to tlie rule of the gospel, to execute judgment upon 
transgressors against the public or private weal] is a mistake, and which I have ever disclaimed 
and abhorred. To prevent such mistakes, I at present shall only propose this case : 

There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe 
is common ; and is a true picture of a common-wealth, or an human combination, or society. It 
hath f.iUen out some times that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked 
into one ship. Upon which supposal, I affirm that all the liberty of conscience th.it ever I 
pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges : That none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews or Turks, 
be forced to come to the ship's prayers or worship ; nor compelled from their own particular 
prayers, or worship, if they practice any. I further add, that I never denied, that notwithstand- 
ing this liberty, the commander of this ship ought to command the ships course ; yea, and also 
command. that justice, peace and sobriety to be kept and pr.actised, both among the seamen and 
all the passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to perform their service, or p,isscnger to pay 
their freight : if any refuse to help in person or purse, towards the common charges or defence ; 
if any refuse to obey the common laws and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace or pres- 
ervation ; if any shall mutiny and rise up against their commanders and officers ; if any should 
preach or write that there ought to be no commanders nor officers, because all are equal in 
Christ, therefore no m.isters nor oflicers, no laws nor orders, no corrections nor punishments; 
I say : I never denied but in such cases, whatever is pretended, the commander, or commanders, 
may judge, resist, compel and punish such transgressors, according to their deserts and merits. 

The clauses which I have italicised above, it seems to me in spirit, if not in 



*^ I take it this refers to his accusing Harris of Higli 
Treason. 

^*^ This was the term then employed in Rhode Island, 
to designate those deie;;ates of towns to the General As- 



sembly, which were known as " Deputies,** or " Rcpre- 
sent.ttives,*' in Mass.ichusetts. 

^■■'Dackus's Hist, X. Enff. i: 297. It is also upon 
the Providence Records. 



[97] 



letter, fully include the case of Mr. Williams himself when he was preaching 
and writing against the Patent and the Oath, and refusing to obey, and doing all 
he could to persuade others to rise up against, the usages and laws which, 
founded upon them, were felt by the magistrates to be for " the common peace" 
and "preservation." 

(6) I find in the manner in which Mr. Williams repeatedly speaks of the men 
who banished him, and their associates, after years had added something to his 
own experience and wisdom, a change of tone and temper concerning them, with 
evidence of his recognition of their right to exercise some little selection in 
their company. For example, he says, probably in the autumn of 1672 :''■'■' 

This [Separation] (as before I hinted) was the heavenly Principle of those many precious and 
gallant Worthies, the Leaders and Corner-Stones of these New England Colonies, viz. : they 
desired to worship God in purity according to those perswasions hi their Consciences, which 
they believed God had lighted up. 

They desired such for their Fellow Worshippers as they (upon a Christian account) could 
have evidence that to be true and real Worshippers of God in Spirit and Truth .ilso. 

This does not sound much like the " abundant ignorance and negligence, and 
consequently grosse abominations and pollutions of Worship ; ""°'' the "spipt- 
uall guilt liable to God's sentence and plagues ; " the " spirit and disposition 
of spiritual drunkennesse and whoredome, a soule-sleepe and a soule-sick- 
nesse;"^the " Antichristian filthines and communions with dead works, 
dead worships, dead persons in Gods worship ;"'^ the " immoderate worldli- 
nes" an "Ulcer or Gangrene of Obstinacy;""™ a "form of a square house upon 
the Keele of a Ship, which will never prove a soul-saving true Arke, or Church 
of Christ Jesus, according to the Patterne ;""'' and the other fierce denuncia- 
tions with which he fulmined against the churches of the Bay, when he himself 
in his youthful rashness lived among them. 

Quite as little does the following, from the same curious volume, — penned 
"when nearing the sober limit of four-score"'''- — where he testifies to:"^ 

A large effusion of the Holy Spirit of God upon so many precious Le.aders and Followers, 
who ventured their All to New England upon many Heavenly Grounds, three especially: 

First, the enjoyment of God according to their Consciences. 

Secondly, Of holding out Light to Americans. 

Thirdly, The advancing of the English Name and Plantations. 

These three ends the most High and Holy God hath graciously helpt his poor Protestants in 
a Wilderness to Endeavour to promote, etc. 



^^•Geo. Fox Dtg^d,etc. Apeiidix,ctc. 15. 
"■^ Mr. Coltojis Letter Examincd,ctc. 18. 
t^Ibid, 2j. 
<^:iid,}s. 



=™//S,V, 33. 

"1 Hid, 46. 

^'- Prof. Diman, Pud. l^ar. Ctuh, v ; iii. 

^^Geo. Fox Digged, etc, ApetidLx,etc. g3. 



[98] 

(7) Again I find him a few years later, when he seems to have passed 
fourscore (and it is the last utterance but two which has been preserved from 
him) addressing a paper to the town clerk of Providence — of date 15-25 Jan. 
16S0-1, — in which he speaks solemnly and earnestly in regard to the conduct 
of those who hindered the welfare of the State by refusing the payment of taxes, 
on some excuse of conscience. From the twenty considerations which he enu- 
merates, take the following as indicating the maturest temper of his mind :"* 

Government and order in families, towns, etc., is the ordinance of the Most High — Rom. 
xiii. — for the peace and good of mankind. 

It is written in the hearts of all mankind, even in pagans, that mankind cannot keep together 
without some government. 

No government is maintained without tribute, custom, rates, taxes, etc. 

It is but folly to resist, (one or more, and if one, why not more ?) God hath stirred up the 
spirit of Ihe Governor, magistrates and officers, driven to it by necessity, to be unanimously 
resolved to see the matter finished ; and // is the duty of every man to maintain, encourage, and 
strengthen the hand of authority. 

Here he clearly urges one of two alternatives, either: (i) that the person 
who finds his conscience leading him to conclusions which would array him 
against the government under which he lives, should take that circumstance in 
conclusive proof that his conscience is acting wrongly, and ought not to be 
obeyed ; or (2) that such a person, while accepting such decision of conscience 
in the abstract, should waive it in the concrete, so far as to submit himself to 
the ordinance concerning which he doubts, when the safety and welfare of the 
government appear to depend upon it. 

Tills reasoning almost half a century before W'ould have saved him from all 
those conflicts in the Bay, out of which his expulsion grew. 

(8) And, finally, there was that in Mr. Williams's conduct in regard to the 
Patent — then and after, — which clearly condemned himself, and went so far, 
at least, toward justifying the Massachusetts men. 

a. In the first place, he must have known before he sailed from England to 
ally his fortunes with those of this plantation, what, for substance, its Patent 
was ; must have known the vital and all-pervasive quality of the relation of that 
instrument to the legal and commercial affairs of the colonists ; and must have 
known that it was as impossible for them, in the situation which they occupied, 
essentially to modify its character ; as it would be for the man suspended over 
the dizzy edge of Dover Cliff, 

that gathers samphire ; dreadful trade ! 

unassisted, to exchange a bad rope for a good one, as he hangs ! 

•"Knowles's Memoir, 351. Mr. Knowles. as in other | cases, fails to indicate where his authority may be found. 



[99] 



"Under these circumstances" — pertinently inquires one of the most intelli- 
gent and thoroughly informed writers who has contributed to the discussion of 
this subject^'^^ — " under these circumstances, it may not unreasonably be asked, 
why did he come at all within the jurisdiction of a government whose chartered 
privileges it were a sin to acknowledge, and purchase a house, and settle down 
as an inhabitant ? And why did he finally regard a banishment from the place 
as a punishment grievous to be borne ? " 

b. In the second place, it is not easy to see how Mr. Williams could be free 
from serious blame for the representations which he made of the terms and 
spirit of the Patents of Kings James and Charles. The e.\act language which 
he employed in his " treatise " is not, to be sure, in our possession ; but we 
have it for substance, reported by Winthrop and Cotton, both of whom had read 
the document; while its author's own admissions in his books which remain, 
endorse the general correctness of the representations which they make. 

(i.) He charged King James with telling " a solemn public lye," in claiming 
in his Patent to have been the first Christian prince that discovered New Eng- 
land."™ But the Patent does not undertake to state who discovered New Eng- 
land. What it says on that subject is the following :"" 

Forasmuch as We have been certainly given to understand by divers of our good Subjects, 
that have for these many Yeares past frequented those Coasts and Territoryes, between the 
Degrees of Fourty and Fourty-eight, that there is noe other the Subjects of any Christian King or 
State, by any authoritie from their Soveraignes, Lords, or Princes, actually in Possession of any of 
the said Lands or Precincts, wliereby any Right, Claim, Interest or Title, may, might, or ought 
by that meanes accrue, belong, or appertaine unto them, or any of them. [It then refers to 
the devastations of pestilence and war by which the territory in question had been left, for many 
leagues together, without inliabitant, or claimant ; as suggesting that the time had come for set- 
tling the land so deserted, and proceeds :] In Contemplacion and serious Consideracion whereof. 
Wee have thougt it fitt according to our Kingly Duty, soe much as in Us lyeth, to second and 
followe God's sacred Will, rendering reverend Thanks to his Divine Majestic for His gracious 
favour in laying open and revealing the same unto us, before any other Christian Prince or State, 
by which Meanes without Offence, and as We trust to liis Glory, Wee may with Boldness goe 
on to the settling of soe hopeful! a Work, etc. 

[Further on,^' this express proviso is inserted, viz.:] Provided always that any of the Prem- 
ises herein before mentioned, and by these Presents intended and meant to be granted, be not 
actually possessed or inhabited by any other Christian Prince, or Estate, etc. 

Surely every candid mind inust admit that there is nothing here to justify the 
strong and offensive language employed by Mr. Williams. 



^^Mr. Charles De<ine, LI^. D., who is especially fa- 
miliar with all mir charter literature. See his discussion 
of this subject in Proceedings of Mass. Hist. Soe. 1S71- 
>873t 353- 



'•''■Ibid, 3.13. 

^^" See the Patent, in Hazard's Historical ColUctions, 
: 103-1 iS. 
''■'Ibid. III. 



[loo] 

(ii.) He charged both kings "with blasphemye for callinge Europe Christen- 
dom, or the Christian world, etc." ^ Winthrop goes into an effective argu- 
ment^" to show that it could not be " Blasphemye " to " name thinges from the 
better parte," to call all baptized ones " Christians to distinguishe them from 
the Turks, etc," and to style " a nation that professethe the faith of Jesus Christ 
(be it in truethe or not) from other nations which professe him not, to saye they 
are Christians." But he might have gone further. The words " Christendom," 
or " Christian World," do not appear to be found in either Patent ; the nearest 
approach to them being the innocuous descriptive term cited above : "Chris- 
tian Prince, or State," which Charles expressly quotes from his father's grant, 
to incorporate it in his own. 

To undertake to raise substantial mutiny in the plantation by working up so 
simple and harmless a thing as this into a fierce charge of " blasphemye," 
seems now to have been as uncandid, as it was absurd. 

(iii.) He charged upon those Patents " a sinne of unjust usurpation upon 
others possessions."^' This was his great point : that Kings James and Charles 
had made the pretence of giving to the colonists, land which really belonged to 
its own aboriginal inhabitants.'^*- 

There are two aspects in which this matter may be regarded ; that of abstract 
right, and that of the existing law of nations. 

First, as to abstract right. By abstract right a white man is as good as an 
Indian. Had the individuals composing the Massachusetts Company been 
driven hither by irresistible east winds, been shipwrecked upon Cape Ann, and 
found themselves upon the soil without previous intent ; they would have had 
tlie natural right to occupy without purchase any land found free from occupa- 
tion which their necessities required, — because no person existed who could 
claim prior right to hold or sell it. God made it for men. No men, as yet, 
held it from Him. Therefore whatsoever men might first desire, need and take 
possession of it, must have the abstract right to do so. And if they found sav- 
age neighbors roaming over adjacent soil, occupying and using territory which 
would be useful to them ; such new comers would acquire, and succeed to, all 
that Indian right of occupation and of use, when they should have amicably 
purchased the same. And thenceforth these new comers, either primarily by 
tlieir own occupation, or secondarily by succeeding to that exercised before 



3™/'r»«-«///>/^f,f/f. (as above) 343. I riglit to hold] our Land by Patient from the King, but 

^^ Ibid, 344. I that the Natives are the true owners of it, and that we 

^^Ibi(L,i\l. I ought to repent of such a receiving it by Pattcnt." [A/r. 

^*^ He admitted that the following was a fair statement Cotton^ s Letter Examineii, eti. 4. See also his Btoudy 

of his opinion, viz : " That we have not [i. r , have no I Teneni Yet tnore Blaudy^ etc. 277.] 



[lOl] 

them by the aborigines, would — so far as abstract justice goes — be in equita- 
ble possession of all territory so acquired. Nor could the fact that the Massa- 
chusetts Company actually came with a purpose, and a Patent from the King, 
vacate or impair the natural right which they would have possessed in the case 
supposed. So that since — notwithstanding their Patent — the New England 
men always did honorably pay all Indian claimants for the territory on which 
they sat down ;^ so far as abstract right went, Mr. Williams clearly had no 
ground for censuring the colonists. 

Second, as to the law. This was perfectly well settled then, and it remains 
essentially unmodilied, and in full force, to this day. Three principles were in- 
volved : ((7) the King was the original proprietor of all the land of a kingdom, 
and the true and only source of all land titles ; (Ji) the discovery of a new coun- 
try vested the title of it in the King by whose subjects, and authority, it was made; 
and ((•) this right of ultimate dominion over a newly discovered country, was 
subject to a right of occupancy on the part of the original savage inhabitants. 
With regard to this latter principle, which has been adopted by our own govern- 
ment, and applied to its relations to the American Indians, Chancellor Kent 
remarks :^ 

The rule that the Indian title was subordinate to the absolute, ultimate title of the govern- 
ment of the European colonists, and that the Indians were to be considered as occupants, and 
entitled to protection in peace in that character only, and incapable of transferring their right 
to others ; was the best one that could be adopted with safety. The weak and helpless condi- 
tion in which we found the Indians, and the immeasurable superiority of their civilized neigh- 
bors, would not admit of the application of any more liberal and equal doctrine to the case of 
Indian lands and contracts. It was founded on the pretension of converting the discovery of 
the country into a conquest ; and it is now too late to draw into discussion the validity of that 
pretension, or the restriction which it imposes. It is established by numerous compacts, trea- 
ties, laws and ordinances, and founded on immemorial usage. The country has been colonized 
and settled, and is now held, by that title. It is the law of the land, and no court of justice can 
permit the right to be disturbed by speculative reasonings on abstract rights."" 



^'^ John Cotton s.iys: '*if we tooke any L.nncls from 
the Natives, it wns by way of purchase, and free con- 
sent." \,Reply to Mr. lVilltams,itc.2-j.'\ Tliis was in 
accordance with the original instructions given by tlie 
Company to Endccott, as follows: " If any of the sal- 
uaj^es ptcnd right of in'.icritaiice to all or any pt. of tlie 
lands graiintcd in o' pattent, wee pray yo" endcavo^ to 
p'chasc their tytle, that wee mayavoyde the least scruple 
of intrusion." \iiTass. Cot. Rec. i: 39 1-] And in 1676 
Gov. Josias Winslow declared : " I think I can clearly 
say that before these present troubles [Philip's War] 
broke out, tlie English did not possess one foot of land 
in this Colony, but what was fairly obtained by honest 
purchase of the Indian proprietors." [Increase Math- 



er's Brief History, etc. Postscript, p. 2. ] Vattel bears 
the same testimony. [Droit itcs Gens. c. i. sec. Si, 209.J 
See also Did tin Pilgrittts ivrotig tlte Iitdiaiis ? ICoft- 
£reg;atiotutl Quarterly, i : 129. ] 

^" Coiitmeittarics on A vicrican Law, iii : 463. 

^^ There have been several decisions of oiu' Supreme 
Court on this general subject. In the case of Johiison 
V. Mcintosh, [3 IVheatoii Refi. 543] the conclusion was 
substantially that above stated by Chancellor Kent. In 
the case of Cherokee Nation v. Stale 0/ Georgia, [5 
Peters^ U. S. Rep. i] and that of M'orcestcr v. State 
0/ Georgia, [6 Peters' U. S. Rep. 515] the same princi- 
ple was restated. In the tatter it was held that royal 
grants, or cliarters, asserted a title to the country as 



[I02] 

If now, Mr. Williams were cognizant of the law of nations, he knew that under 
it the king was quite right in granting, and the Massachusetts grantees in 
receiving, their Patent ; so that no reason for complaint existed on that score. 
While, if he were familiar with the facts in the case, he knew that those grant- 
ees interpreted their Charter as only protecting them outwardly from France, or 
Spain, or some other European power, while giving them the right to acquire 
by amicable purchase from the Indian, that title of occupancy and use which 
remained in him, and was essential to their full ownership ; and which, in point 
of fact, they did acquire in every instance in which they made a settlement. 
Both together satisfied the demands of law and equity. And when both are 
faithfully considered, it is very difficult to acquit Mr. Williams of ignorance, or 
unfairness, or both, in what he said about them. 

c. In the third place, Mr. Williams afterwards accepted for the colony of 
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and was there active under, a Patent 
from the English crown, which made for it precisely the same assumptions with, 
and was open to precisely the same objections as, those for Massachusetts, 
which a quarter of a century earlier he had so unsparingly denounced. 

It is only important, for the purpose which I have in view, that I should call 
attention here to two facts : 

(i.) Roger Williams was a consenting party to this Charter. Of the twenty- 
three persons on whose behalf John Clarke petitioned the king for it, he was 
the tcnth.^ He was also the tenth of the twenty-si.Y grantees named in the 
instrument. He was the third of the ten Assistants therein nominated. So 
much as this, indeed, might have happened without his knowledge or assent. 
But we find him at once uniting with others in carrying out the provisions of 
the new Patent on its arrival. He was present to give his " solemn engage- 
ment, by oath, or otherwyse, for the due and faythfuU performeance " of his duty 
as an Assistant, at the first meeting of the General Assembly under its provis- 
ions, at Newport i-ii March 1663-4.^' His name was placed first on the list 
by that Assembly made of the freemen who were " accepted members of this 
Company, Corporation and Collony."^ He was appointed to transcribe the 
Charter.^ He was, at once, ex-oficio as an Assistant, named as a magistrate 
under it.^ He served under it as a Deputy in 1667, and as an Assistant in the 



against Europeans only, leaving them b^ank paper so 
far as the riglits of the natives were concerned. See the 
fiencral question of the inherent propriety of tlic advance 
of civilization, notwithstanding the adverse claim of rude 
tribes to keep it out, argued with candor and ability by 
Chancellor Ke^^ [ComnuniaruSt*^-'^'- 469-473O 



^'"Sce the Charter in txlciuo, ia R. I. C»l. Rtc. 
i: 3-21. 

'^'liid, aS. 



[io3] 



years 1664, 1665, 1670, 167 1 and 1672,^' and during all these years I find no 
trace of any the least complaint against this Patent, or objection to it, from 
his lip or pen. 

(ii.) This Charter in that vital point of the assumption of the crown to own 
and grant the lands of the natives, against which Mr. Williams had so strenu- 
ously objected, was kindred in spirit to, and in fact identical in language with, 
the previous Patents to Massachusetts of Charles the First, and his father 
James the First. I will prove this by arranging that clause of each of the three 
Charters to which reference is made, in parallel columns i"*^ 



[_Two Massachusetts Charters.'] 



James I. 1620. 
do by these Presents absolutely 
give, giant and confirm unto 
the said Councill . . and un- 
to their Successors for ever, 
all the aforesaid Lands and 
Grounds, etc. . . . to be hold- 
en of Us .. 3.S ol our Manor 
of East Greenwich in our 
County of Kent, in free and 
comon Soccage, and not in 
Capite, nor by Knights Ser- 
vice, yielding and paying 
therefore to Us, our Heires, 
our Successors, the fifth part 
of the Ore of Gold and Silver, 
which from time to time, and 
att all times heereafter, shall 
happen to be found, etc. 



Charles I. 162S-9. 
doe for vs, our heires and suc- 
cessors, ^ive and grant vnto the 
said Sir Henry Rosewell, etc., 
all landes and groundes, place 
and places, soyles, woodes, 
etc., lyeing within the said 
boundes and lymytts, and every 
parte and parcell thereof . . to 
be holden of us, our heires and 
successors, as of our manner 
of Eastgreenewich in our 
Countie of Kent, within our 
realme of England, in tree and 
common soccage, etc. yeild- 
ing and paying therefore to 
vs, etc. the fifte parte onlie of 
all oare of gould and silver, 
etc. 



[Rhode Island Charter.] 

Charles II. 1663. 
for vs, our heires and succcss- 
ours, doe give, graitnt and con- 
firme vnto the sayd Govcrnour 
and Company, etc all that 
parte of our dominioncs in 
NewEngland, in America, con- 
teyneing the Nahantick and 
Nanhyganset Bay, and coun- 
tryes and partes adjacent . . . 
to be /widen of vs, our Iieires 
and successours, as of the 
Mannor of East-Greenwich in 
our County of Kent, in free 
and comon soccage, etc. yeild- 
ing and paying therefor, to 
V.S etc. only the fifth part 
of all the oare of gold and sil- 
ver, etc. 



One glance is sufficient here to establish the fact that this second Patent of 
Rhode Island, in so far as it touches the immediate subject under considera- 
tion, is indistinguishable from the two Massachusetts Patents. 

Mr. Williams clearly began at Providence with the endeavor to carry out 
faithfully his own radical ideas. When he went to England in 1643, he obtained, 
through the Commissioners of Plantations, a Charter which contained no grant 
of land, but simply empowered the Providence planters to rule themselves, con- 
formably to the laws of England, " so far as the Nature and Constitution of the 
place will admit."^ The colonists undertook as individuals to extinguish the 



""■Ibid, 22, 96, 1S5, 302, 373, 431. 

""Find these clauses: King James's, in H.izard's 
Hist. CM. i : 1 1 1 ; King Charles Ist's, in M<iss. Col. 



Rec.'v. 7,9; King Charles lid's, in R. I. CoL Rtc. 
li: iS, 19. 
™Scc the First Patent, R. I. Col. Rcc. i: i43-m4- 



[i04] 

Indian titles. It proved a difficult work.^*^ The same Indian might sell the 
same land to different parties. Boundaries were elastic. And, in the absence 
of any supreme power to adjudge between contestants, confusion reigned. 
Under that Charter the Providence plantation was not a success.^^ And, hav- 
ing learned wisdom by experience, there seems to have been a general consent, 
on the part of all, to accept, if not to seek, a second Charter which should bring 
them into a closer fellowship with their sister colonies. 

Surely, now, the circumstance that Mr. Williams, having tested his own theo- 
ries on this subject through the greater part of a generation, found it wise 
quietly to abandon them in favor of the exact doctrine which he had written 
and preached against at Plymouth and Salem ; is one calculated to shed light 
upon the question whether the Massachusetts men of 1635 were wholly unrea- 
sonable in thrusting him — such as he then was — out of their company; and 
deserves the serious* consideration of all who wish to reach a full and fair judg- 
ment of Roger Williams as he really was. 

And not until the student has patiently considered the points here presented 
— the peculiar character of the plantation ; the idiosyncrasies of the man ; the 
actual nature of a "banishment" often overestimated, as well as misunderstood ; 
the temper of the times ; the quality of the necessity which Mr. Williams him- 
self had created, and the nature of the alternative which he had forced upon 
the colonists ; yet the thorough and inexhaustible kindness with which, never- 
theless, they treated him; with the facts that — in nearly every particular — 
he subsequently confessed the substantial justice of their dealing with him. 



'** Judge Sullivan, in his History of the District of 
Maine { 1 795), discusses the whole subject of Indian titles. 
He says: "as the S.iva^cs hnd no ideas of a permanent 
use and improvement of the soil, or ever had a personal, 
or individual right in it. or ever, by annexing thelrtabour 
to it, rendered it better, or more apt, for the use of man ; 
I am led to conclude that they had no more property in 
the soil on which ihey hunted, than they had in the 
waters in which they fished." His further conclusion is 
that: *'lhe Indian conveyancesclearlyamountedtonoih- 
ing more th.in a contract, made by the Chief, on consent 
of his tribe, that the Savages should not make war on 
the white people for taking lands to a certain extent into 
possession. In this way we may account for one Sa- 
chcm's selling the same tract to several different pur- 
chasers: for if the deed was only an agreement upon 
peace and friendship, there could, in the Indian's view, 
be no immorality in making the contract with as many 
as might appear to demand it. And a wish in some of the 
savages to trade with the white people* and to learn the 
art of agriculture, might be a principal motive." [p. 135] 



'^^As to this, I refer the reader to an authority before 
cited : " It would probably be no departure from l!ic truth 
to say that the government of ' Providence Plantations,' 
under this [the fir^t] charter, and indeed the govern- 
ment of Providence before the charter went into opera- 
tion, was a failure. There seemed to be no authority 
for the setdement of disputes which constantly arose. 
Perhaps fit materl.ils for a government were wanting. 
These disputes related largely to their lands. Williams 
is responsible for much of this disorder. The careless 
and indcfmite manner in which the original conveyances 
of Providence and Pawiuxct were drawn, as well as 
those subsequently innde by him to his companions, was 
the source of a bitter and prolonged controversy, not 
finally settled till the next century. It shows that Wil- 
liams, however able a dialectician, was a poor man of 
business. 

"Tliese Indian deeds at best, and however carefully 
drawn, were often a source of ])erplexity and litigation in 
all the colonies." \.Mr. CliarUs Deatu^ LL. D. Pro- 
ceedings Mass. Hist. Soc. 1873. 356.] 



[I05] 

and that in the important matter of the Patent, he abandoned his own opinion 
to revert to theirs — will he be in a position fitting him to speak wisely and con- 
clusively upon this vexed passage of New England history."^ 



T seems to be a very natural thing that a few words should here be added as 
to some of the essentials for a just judgment in regard to the Baptists, the 
Quakers, and the general subject of religious liberty, as related to the opinions, 
the policy, and the conduct of our fathers. I shall confine myself to three or 
four suggestions merely, without entering upon any full discussion of topics too 
fruitful for these narrow limits. 

I. We are to remember that the founders of New England lived in the earlier 
half of the seventeenth, and not the later half of the nineteenth, century. So 



s^I scarcely think ihere has been so much honestly 
meant misrepresematlon concerning any other person in 
modem history. Two strong yet entirely unlike motives 
have led different writers to draw from an imperfect ac- 
quaintance with the subject, mistaken inferences in re- 
gard to it. The Baptists, as I have already intimated, 
have done this on the one hand. The Unitarians, in 
earlier days when they were more drawn than at present 
to speak harslily of the founders of New England, fell 
into the same temptation, on the other. This seems to 
account for some, at least, of Dr. Bentley's frequent 
blunders. It may, perhaps, explain Dr. Parkman's 
averment: "at the present'day, when just notions of re- 
ligious Hberty have extensively prevailed, they [/. e. the . 
causes of Mr. Williams's banishment] will be deemed, of 
course, utterly insufficient ; and nothing but a full con- 
sideration of the condition of our Puritan fathers, and 
the dangers of an infant colony, as well as of the general 
spirit of the times, will protect them from the charge of 
oppressive cruelty." {Christian Examiner ^ xvi: Si.] 
Possibly from the same source came the dictum : "if the 
Massachusetts colonists erected their civil and ccclesias- 
cal organization on an illiberal basis, they, and not Roger 
Williams, must be held responsible tor the bad conse- 
quences which might have resulted to it from his proc'a- 
mation of a vital principle " [iV^art/t American RcvieiUy 
Ixi: 9-1 That the (Baptist) Christian Rcvie-M{%\ 275] 
should say: "The first anntmciation of this great prin- 
ciple [/. e. of religious freedom] by Roger Williams, 
awakened suspicion in the colony; his boldness in ihc 
cause of truth confirmed it; and the firmness with which 
he defended his opinions in every case, led to his final 
banishment," is not remarkable: especially when one 
finds that the pen so writing was the same which soon 
after gave to the world that History 0/ Rhode Island 
which I have already had occasion to criticise as partly 
failing, through a lack of thoroughness, to do justice to 



the subject. From another quarter of the compass, still, 
come the fierce criticisms of that modern High-Church- 
man, the late Peter Oliver, who says: " Roger Williams 
was cast out into the wilderness, because he taught that 
it was unlawful even 'to hear the godly ministers' of 
the Church of England. Harmless enough, truly, was 
this fanaticism in Massachusetts, at the time he spoke, 
etc." \_The Puri'an Commomvealih^ 192.] Dr. Hague 
perhaps capped the climax of absurdity, when [^Histori- 
cal Discourse Delivered at the celebration 0/ the Sec- 
ond Centennial 0/ the First Baptist Church in Provi- 
dence, 7 Nov. 1839, 20, 91] he called him, as he escaped 
from Salem, a ^^vcfiera&le pilgrim," and declared that 
" however strong might have been his aversion to any class 
of sentiments, however pungent his invective, he never 
betrayed one wish to infringe on the freedom of an oppo- 
nent, or to use any other than moral means in promoting 
his o[iinions.' Nearest of all to the truth of the matter, 
Piof Masson says of Roger Williams: "Personally he 
was most likeable — sincere to tlie core, and of a rich, 
glowing, peculiarly affectionate nature, which yearned 
even towards those from whom he differed publicly, and 
won their esteem in return. Put what were they [the 
colonists] to do? Mere religious whimsies ihcy might 
have borne with so far in Williams, Including even his 
Individualism, or excess of Separatism; but here were 
attacks on law. jiroperty, social order! For a time it was 
lioped that reasonings, moderate censures and moral pres- 
sure would bring him round. But, though he shifted f:om 
place to place — leaving Salem for a time for New Plym- 
outh, where he tried to get on with the mild Brewster, and 
then returning to Salem, where the people were so at- 
tached to him that they would have him to be their ' (us- 
tor' on the death of Skelton ( 163^) — yet as he became 
more determined in his singularities, and maintained 
tlicm by writings, harder measures were used " \Li/e 0/ 
John MiUon^ete. ii: 561.] 



[io6] 



obvious a thought ought not to need even an allusion ; but we find men contin- 
ually referring to the beginnings of our colonial career in terms which imply 
absolute forgetfulness of its simplest postulates. Surely the stream of social 
life and feeling in this rude wilderness could not be reasonably expected to rise 
higher than its fountain in the affluent and cultured metropolis of the mother- 
country. And yet — to take a single illustration — while Parliament was (as late 
as 4-14 Dec. 1660) there ordering the disinterment of the decaying remains 
of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton, in order that what was left of their mortal 
part should be hanged at Tyburn, and their heads stuck on poles upon the top 
of Westminster Hall fronting the Palace Yard ;^' and while Evelyn, almost in 
the beginning of the eighteenth centurj-, saw the quarters of Perkins and Friend 
— " a dismal sight!" — set up upon Temple Bar;"^ there are writers, and 
among them those of whom one would expect a better learning and candor,^ 
who speak of such New England facts as, that when "King Philip" had been 
shot in Bristol woods in 1676 (he being, from a legal point of view, considered 
a rebel against King Charles the 2d) his body was quartered, and his head 
exposed for years at Plymouth ;*"' as of barbarities so shocking, and inhuman, 
as almost to compel us to look upon our fathers as monsters, and not as men ! 

We may as well blame the New England colonists for not using the telegraph 
and the fast mail train, when as yet they had neither a courier, nor so much as 
even any rude road along which a passenger wagon might jolt its way ; as to 
find fault with them for not lifting themselves in all the domain of thought and 
feeling out of the intellectual and spiritual average of their days, up toward the 
broader culture of subsequent ages. Nor, unless we take special pains to force 
our minds back toward the low level of the acquisitions of their time, shall we 
find it easy to comprehend how compar.itivcly little they knew, and could 
know, in many directions in which knowledge has so long been common and 
cheap with us, and our immediate fathers before us. 

I date the era of the settlement of New England, here, with the advent of the 
• Pilgrims of 1620, rather than with that of the Puritans of ten years later, because 
it synchronizes exactly with the birth-date of that revival of learning, which is 
commonly identified with the first issue of the Insiatiratio Magna of Lord Bacon, 
in that year.*"^ And I now desire to call the reader's attention to the meager 
quality of the scientific and general erudition of that era, which is revealed in 



»' Knight's /"oA iri't. Eng. iv: 24S. 

*w Evelyn's Diary^ 10 Apr. 1696. 

*»Evcn Mr. Drake, D'lag. and Hisl. 0/ Indians of 
tf. A. (nth cd.) 2=7, fails to remember — as might h.ivc 
been expected from his large information — the obvious 
phnciple here considered ; and Mr. Savage in his anno- 



tation of Gov. Wlnthrop's7^/'*«rt/more than once trans- 
gresses it [E.g.'x: 53, 167; ii: 174, etc 

*™ Increase Mather, Brie/Hist. 47 ; Niles's ///>/. Ind, 
and Fr. Wars^Kx^z Mass. Hist, CoU, vi: 190; Thach- 
er's Hist. Plymouth, 3S9. 

*'>^H^\>ia'iIiltr0JiK.to Lit. c/Eurofe,eU. ii: 39'- 



[io7] 

tin periods by which it was separated from the advent of various discoveries, 
and inventions, which long, long ago, have taken their places with us among 
familiar things. When the Mayflower dropped her anchor in Plymouth harbor, 
wise men were still in doubt whether the Copernican, ought to supplant the 
Ptolemaic, world-theory.'"'' It was two years after that date before Asellius dis- 
covered the fact, and the philosophy, of the chyle, and its relation to the diges- 
tive process ; and two years, before England saw her first newspaper.'"'^ It was 
five years, before hackney-coaches began to be kept for hire in London.'"^ It 
was eight years, before William Harvey, in Iiis Excrcitatio Anatomica de Motu 
Cordis ct Sanguinis, promulgated the doctrine of the circulation of the blood.'"^ 
It was eighteen years, before Galileo announced the first true law of motion.'"'^ 
Itwas twenty years, before Gascoigne,by fixing a crossoffine wires in the focus of 
the telescope, raised it from an instructive curiosity to the dignity of a far-seeing 
eye that can accurately note celestial phenomena ; and twenty-eight, before the 
barometer began to be available as an indicator of the hight of mountains, or 
the coming on of storms/"'' It was thirty-six years, before Huyghens, applying 
Galileo's oscillating pendulum to a simple registry of wheels and pinions, fur- 
nished the world with a measure of time more accurate than the sun itself.*"* It 
was forty-four years, before Willis described the nerve-center, and laid the foun- 
dation of that knowledge of the nervous system which we now possess.*"" It was 
forty-six years, before Newton, sitting in his garden, was led on to the develop- 
ment of the law of universal gravitation, " the greatest scientific discovery ever 
made."''"' It was forty-seven years, before the erection of the observatory of 
Paris, followed eight years after by that at Greenwich, opened the way for the 
modern progress of astronomy.'"' It was fifty-two years, before the same great 
mind which had developed the law of gravitation, enabled men to explain the 
rainbow, by demonstrating that light is composed of rays of different colors and 
varying refrangibility.'"" It was fifty-three years, before the first almanac, in 
present shape, was published at O.xford, Eng.*'^ It was fifty-six years, before 
Romer discovered the fact that light travels along its course in a measurable 
time.'"* It was seventy-five years, before Dr. Woodward began to comprehend. 



<°- Dr. Wliewell sliews that Lord Bacon w.ts not a Co- 
pcrnicin, and Milton undecided; and tliinlts that Salus- 
bury, wlio, in i66r, publislicd a translation of some of 
Galileo's works, perhaps did as much as any one else to 
convince England. \Hist. Induct. Scienccs/\'. 295-299.] 

*^ lhid,u\'. 33S; Vaw^zSi^i Ilaytdy-Book about Boolu, 
etc. 97. 

*** Appleton'a Cydopfdia, sub voce "Coach." 

405 wiiewell's ?Iht. Induct. Sciences, iii: 331. 



""Ibid, ii; 20. 

^^' Ibid, ii : 20S ; Appleton's Cyclopedia, sub voce. 

***8 Whewell's ///jA Ittduct. Sciences, ii: 210. 

"»/&■</, iii: 35.. 

*^^ Ibid, ii : 117, 121. 

*^^ Ibid, ii: 215, 216. 

"'-Ibid,\\: 2S1. 

*'^ Powers' s Ilandy-Book, etc. 39. 

*'* WhewclPs //u/. Induct. Sciences, ii ; 199. 



[io8] 

and announce, the fact that the surface of the earth exists in geological strata.*'' 
It was eighty-nine years, before a daily newspaper was started in England.'"" It 
was one hundred years, before the thermometer was made available for its uses 
of observation.'"' Itwas one hundred and thirteen years, before Dufay expounded 
the laws of electricity.'"' It was one hundred and twenty-six years, before 
Cunaeus invented the Leyden jar, and produced the electric shock.*" It was 
one hundred and thirty-eight years, before Cronstedt settled the first principles 
of the science of mineralogy.*^ It was one hundred and forty years, before the 
establishment of street lamps in London.*^' Itwas one hundred and forty- 
eight years, before Watt produced, and patented, the steam-engine.*^' It was one 
hundred and fifty-one years, before Arkwright was manufacturing cotton cloth 
by means of spindles and looms driven by water.*^ It was one hundred and 
sixty-four years, before Cavendish found out that water is compounded of oxy- 
gen and hydrogen gas.*^* It was one hundred and seventy-one years, before 
Galvani announced the science which took his name, and which has made the 
telegraph possible in our own time.*^ It was one hundred and ninety eight 
years, before the first ship crossed the Atlantic under steam /-" and two hund- 
red and nine years, before Stevenson's " Rocket " led the long succession of 
locomotives of the nineteenth century.*-'' 

Separated from the present in point of science by this far remove, we are to 
take note also that in many departments of feeling as well as thought, the Eng- 
lish people in the days of which we speak were in a condition so unlike that of 
their children, as to make it difficult for us to do them justice ; as witness one 
further fact — that more than two hundred persons were hanged in England, 
and thousands were burned in Scotland, during the seventeenth century, for 
witchcraft alone.*^ 

2. We need to refer again *^ to the fact that the theory of the toleration of 
various and variant ideas in religion, had not then established itself in the 
world among reputable doctrines. The ancient idea was of one all-embracing, 
infallible and unchangeable church. And in England the Reformation had 



*^^Ibidy iii : 411. 

<"■' Powcrs's Haudy-Booky etc. 40. 

**" Appleton's Cyclopedia^ sub voce. 

"'Whewcll's^u/. Induct. Sciences, iii: 8. 

«»/&■</, iii: II. 

t^Jl'id, iii: 193. 

*-' Oid England, il : 359. 

*~ Appleton's Cyclopedia, sub voce. 

*^ll>id, sub voce "Arkwright." 

*** Whewcll's //m/. Induct. Scienee3,'\\\: lu 

<^16id,m: 61. 



*-'"' Appletons's Cyclopedia, sub voce *' Steam naviga- 
tion." 

<" riid, sub voce " Steam carriage. " 

*^ Uphani's Salem U'itcltcraft, etc. i : 347. Not only 
\x'as there this palliation for the witchcraft delusion at 
S.tlem, but it is a fact also that even William Penn pre- 
sided, in his judicial character, at the trial of two Swedish 
women for witchcraft ; so that nothing saved Pennsylva- 
nia from a like blot upon her annals, but the accident of 
a flaw in tlie indictment. \,Ibid,t,n.\ 

"*See p. 86, and note 317, anU. 



[log] 

scarcely more than transferred that idea from the Pope's church to that of 
Henry VIII. And when our fathers dared to differ with that State church in 
matters of polity, they did so with the sincere belief that the government was 
right in its fundamental principles, only mistaken in their application ; right in 
rigidly ruling with reference to spiritual things, only wrong in the data by 
which that rule was determined ; right in compelling men as to their church 
polity, only wrong as to the kind of polity which was the object of such com- 
pulsion. It would be the hight of absurdity, therefore, to expect that, when 
landed after a voyage of three thousand miles in the North American wilder- 
ness, such Englishmen should launch themselves at once into a subsequent 
century. The only course natural to them was — ■ mutatis mutandis — to repro- 
duce as well as they could on the western side of the Atlantic the mother- 
countrjr, as they thought she ought to be, and as, if they had had the power, 
they would have made her to be, at home. 

The notion of toleration had had existence for more than a century, as a 
purely speculative conception. But as a practical working-day principle, it was 
almost inevitable that it should only be the birth of a considerable and painful 
experience. As new sects were evolved, and each took its turn of bearing per- 
secution, each necessarily claimed for itself the right to be ; and so, each add- 
ing one new demand in that direction, the way was gradually prepared for the 
idea of general, and equal, liberty for all. There can be no doubt that Mr. Wil- 
liams, though far from being the discoverer, or first promulgator, of the doc- 
trine, and though holding it originally in a crude form, was in his maturcr years 
one of its most zealous and successful advocates, and that he did much in his 
connection with civil affairs in Rhode Island to favor and further it. But it 
cannot be held to be in any sense a just matter of reproach to the Massachu- 
setts men that they shared the training, and so the prepossessions and preju- 
dices, of their time, and dreaded the advent of those new ideas in religion which 
they honestly conceived must, almost of necessity, be pernicious — as men dread 
the malarias and miasmas of an unknown low country. 

3. We ought not, further, to forget that new sects in those days were apt to 
be associated with the ideas of fanaticism, and civil license, in their most offen- 
sive and dangerous form ; so that for this reason good men, and the lovers 
of good order, were prejudiced against them in advance. I think, indeed, our 
fathers strongly doubted whether any religion were tolerable for the English 
State, except the Established Church, and their own form of dissent from it. 
John Cotton early taught the Church in Boston (New England) liiat the pour- 
ing out of the third vial \Rcv. xvi : 4-7] should be so interpreted as to endorse 
the Statute of 27th Elizabeth, which put to death Priests and Jesuits ; " because 



[no] 

they had bloudy intendments in their comming, intending to kill the Queene, 
or corrupt the State with unwholsome and pernicious Doctrine, to draw the peo- 
ple from their allegeance, to the obedience of the Sea of Rome."*'" 

Nor, be it remembered here, is the question strictly so much what these new 
sects really did hold and teach, as what they were then commonly reported and 
believed to hold and teach. Ephraim Pagitt, in his Heresiography^^ and a few 
kindred writers, were responsible for the creation of a serious popular distrust 
of novelties in religious faith. He represents the Familists as teaching that 
Henry Nicholas could no more err than Christ ; that his books are of equal 
authority with the Bible ; that all days are alike ; that they attained perfection, 
and needed not to pray for the forgiveness of sins ; while he declares that they 
indulged in a lewd and shameless life.''"'^ He says the Aniiiwmians held that it 
is sufficient for a wicked man to believe, and not to doubt of his salvation ; that 
the child of God cannot sin, and need not ask forgiveness for any of his acts — 
it being nothing less than blasphemy for him to do so ; that, if a man knows 
himself to be in a state of giace, though he get drunk or commit murder God 
sees no sin in him.*'^ The following e.xtract will convey some notion of the 
spirit in which Pagitt wrote, and will make it easy to see how a community 
leavened with such ideas should regard the advent of men of novel sentiments 
with apprehension. After describing fifteen or twenty such sects, — he names 
more than forty — and giving some details of the heresies and excesses of each, 
he goes on : *"* 

They preach, print and practice their heretical opinions openly : for books, vide the bloudy 
Tenet, witncsse a Tractate of divorce, in wliich the bonds are let loose to inordinate lust : a 
pamphlet also in which the soul is laid a sleep from the hour of death unto the hour of judge- 
ment, with m.iny others. 

Yea, since the suspension of our Church-government, every one that listeth turneth Preacher, 
as Shoe-makers, Coblers, Button-makers, Hostlers and such like, take upon them to expound 
the holy Scriptures, intrude into our Pulpits, and vent strange doctrine, tending to faction, sedi- 
tion and blasphemy. 

What mischiefc these Sectaries have already done, wee that have cure of souls in London 
findc and see with great griefe of heart: viz., Our congregations forsaking their Pastors; our 
people bccomming of the Tribe of Gad, running after seducers as if they were mad ; Infants 
not to be brought to the Sacrament of Baptisme ; men refusing to receive the holy Communion, 



•=" Tlu ra-Mring ml c/ tht Seven Vi(us,etc. (ccl. 1642) 
jd Vi.il, 4 ; (cd. 1O45) 34. 

*^' This was first published in 1645. I have seen in the 
British Museum, and the libmries at Cambridse, [Eng.] 
other editions; of 1645 (again), 1646, 1647, 1O47 (again). 
1654, and 1661 ; while Lowndes mentions another of 1662 ; 
showing a very large circulation for the book. 



*~ Heresiogrnphy, (ed. 1654) 80-S7. W. Wilkinson 
quite sustains most of these cli.argcs of P.tgitt, in his Coti' 
futation ef Certaitte Articies dei:vered vnto the Fntit' 
ilye 0/ L (nie^ {-.u:tU Certaine prafAahle Notes to knovt an 
IJeretique^ especially an A nabaptist)^ etc. 1579. 

*^Ilfid^ gi-ioj. 

*^Iiid, \x. 



[Ill] 



and the Lords Prayer accounted abominable, etc. A Volumn will hardly contain the hurt that 
these Sectaries have in a very short time done to this poor Church ; and doth not the Common- 
wealth suffer with the Church ? Whence are all these distractions ? Who are the Incendiaries 
that have kindled and blown this fire among us, but these ? 

Quite in the same vein is Mr. Tliomas Edwards, who says in his famous Gan- 
grtzna ■}"''" 

This Land is become already in many places a Chaos, a Babel, another Amsterdam, yea, 
worse ; we are beyond that, and in the highway to Munster (if God prevent it not) but if a gen- 
eral Toleration should be granted, so much written and stood for, England would quickly 
become a Sodom, an Egj-pt, Babylon, yea, worse then all these : Certainly, as it would be the 
most provoking sin against God that ever Parliament was guilty of in this KIngdome, like to 
that of leroboam, to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth ; so it would prove 
the cause and fountain of all kind of damnable heresies and blasphemies, loose and ungodly 
practises, bitter and unnatural divisions in families and Churches ; it would destroy all Relig- 
ion, and as Polutheisme among the Heathen brought in Atheisme, so would many Religions 
bring in none among us ; let but the Reader well review and consider of all the Heresies, blas- 
phemies, practises laid down in this Book, all broached and acted in England within these four 
last yecrs, yea more especially within this last yeer ; and if one man hath observed and gathered 
so much, what Armies of blasphemies and monstrous heresies are there thinke we, if all that 
have been vented were drawn into one Synopsis.' . . . Should any man seven yeers ago 
have said that of many in England (which now all men see) that many of the Profe.ssors and 
people in England shall be Arrians, Anti-trinitarians, Anti-Scripturists, nay blaspheme, deride 
the Scriptures, give over all prayer, hearing Sermons, and other holy duties ; be for Toleration of 
all Religions, Poperie, Blasphemie, Atheisme, it would have bin said. It cannot be ; and the 
persons who now are fallen, would have said as Hazael, Are we dogs that we should doe such 
things .' and yet we see it is so ; and what may we thanke for this, but liberty, impunity, and 
want of government > We have the plague of Egypt upon us, frogs out of the bottomlesse pit 
covering our land, comming into our Houses, Bed-chambers, Beds, Churches ; a man can hardly 
come into any place, but some croaking frog or other will be comming up upon him. 



And in mucli the same way mourns Robert Baillie:''"" 



It is marvailed by many whence these new Monsters of Sects have arisen : Some spare not, 
from this ground, liberally to blasphem the Reformation in hand, and to magnifie the Bishops 
as if they had kept down, and this did set up, the Sects which now praedominate. But these 
murmurers would do well in their calm and sober times, to remember that none of the named 
Sects arc births of one day ; but all of them were bred and born under the wings of no other 
Dame than Episcopacy : the tyranny and superstition of this Step-mother, was the seed and 
spawn of Brownismc, the great root of the most of our Sects ; all which were many yeers ago 
brought forth, however kept within doors so long as any Church-Disciplin was on foot : Now, 
indeed, every Monster walks in the street without controlement, while all Ecclesiastick Gov- 
ernment is cast asleep ; this too too long inter-reign and meer Anarchy hath invited every 



*^-' Giingrann^ or a Ciitaiogiie and Discovery o/ many 
of tJu ErroitrSf Heresies^ Blasfluinies and perniciotts 
praciiies o/tJu Sectarus of this tivte^ etc. ( 1646), 120. 



^^ A Dissvasive from tJu Errours 0/ tJie Time : 
IV/urein the Tenets 0/ t/ie principaU SectSj etc., art 
drawn togetJur^ etc. (1645), 6. 



[II2] 



unclean creature to creep out of its cave, and shew in publike its mishapen face to all, who like 
to behold. 

There can be no manner of doubt that — strong as this language seems to 
our time, it fairly expressed the predominant feeling of the majority of the good 
men of the seventeenth centur}'. Tliey dreaded these new sects from afar, as 
they dreaded conflagration, or the plague. In fact Pagitt makes use of these 
exact comparisons i*"' 

How dangerous the fostering of Hereticks hath been, Histories declare, viz.: Almighty God 
sent downe fire from heaven, and consum'd Antioch, being a nursery of Hereticks [Paiiliis Dia- 
con. lib. 15.] And also how the earth opened, and swallowed Nicomedia, the meeting place of 
the blasphemous Arians \Tlieod. lib. 2, cap. x.wi] : also in the Commentaries of Sleiden, how 
the Anabaptists meeting first in Conventicles, surprised Munster, and how hardly Amsterdam 
escaped them, Latnherlus Ilortensius writeth. 

The plague is of all diseases most infectious : I have lived among you [this extract is from the 
Dedication to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the city of London] almost a Jubile, and seen 
your great care and provision to keep the City from infection, in the shutting up the sick, and 
in carrying them to your Pest-house ; in setting Warders to keep the whole from the sick; in 
making of fires and perfuming the streets ; in resorting to your Churches; in pouring out your 
prayers to Almighty God with fasting and almes to be propitious to you. The plague of Heresii 
is greater^ and you are Ji07v iti more danger then luheit you buried Jive thousand a week ! You 
have power to keep these Hereticks & Sectaries from Conventicles, and sholing together to 
infect one another. 

Fire is dangerous, m.iny great Cities in Europe have been almost ruinated by it : I have 
seen your diligence and dexterity in quenching it in the beginning ; your breaking open your 
Pipes for water, making flouds in your streets ; your Engines to cast the water upon the houses : 
your industry and paines is admirable. Heresie is as dangerous as fire ; use your best endeavours 
to quench it^ before it eousumes us ! 

And even a man of so good and gracious a spirit as Samuel Rutherford of 
St. Andrews, whose " Letters " are so fragrant with the sweetest manifestations 
of the Divine life in the soul of man, as to have won for themselves a perma- 
nent place in the closet-literature of the Church, in his Survey of The Spiritual 
Antichrist (1648) — I quote from a copy in my possession bearing the auto- 
graphs both of John Cotton, and John Norton — could speak of :*^ 

the lawlessc Spirit of Enthysiasts, the murthering spirit of Anabaptists, Libertines, Familists, who 
kill all, as Antichrislian, that are not of their way. 

4. Still further, it is obvious that the Anabaptists and the Quakers presented 
themselves to the early settlers of New England in a guise eminently calculated 
to e.xcite prejudice and hostility against themselves ; the more especially as 
our fathers were — as we have seen — far from being prepossessed in their favor. 

"■^ Htresiografhy,etc. Tm. \ '" P^irt il: 239. 



[113] 

It is not necessary to take space here to recount the painful and bloody his- 
tory of those monomaniacs of Munster, who, just one hundred years before the 
settlement of New England, had made the name of Anabaptist one to excite 
loathing and horror. It is sufficient to note that our fathers supposed they had 
the most undoubted authority for the conclusion that these persons not only 
believed Christ not to be true God, being only a gifted man ; that there is no 
original sin, and that infants ought not to be baptized ; but believed that they 
themselves acted by a divine inspiration ; that they were the righteous, and 
that the righteous had the right to wash their feet in the blood of the wicked ; 
that property ought to be held in common ; that it is unlawful for a Christian 
man to be a magistrate, or to obey a magistrate ; that an oath is not to be used 
in processes of justice ; and that a believer should not be tied to one wife, but 
may marry as many as he likes.^ The New England men supposed they had 
abundant warrant for the truth of statements involving the name of Anabaptist 
with the most indecent, as well as painful, frenzies ;^^ and they found the prom- 



*33Xhe authorities on which they especially relied, ap- 
pear to have been these, viz. : Sieidanus De Siatit /vf- 
lig^iojiis, etc. ComfuenSarii, Libri. 5) (1555); Lambertiis 
HorXcnswisTviiivitz/vm A nabaptistarz']fi,{i^^%h\iX\.\\^rQ 
jsin the British Museumareprint, of date 1637); liullin- 
ger's Alt Hoisujn A ntidotus, or Counterfioyserty a^aynst 
tlie pestilent heresye mid Secte of A>ial/a/>tisies, etc. 
(154S), and his Three Dialo°;ites bet-weene the seditious 
libertine^ or rebeli Atiabnptisty and the true obedient 
Christian '. -wherein Obedience to Magistrates is han- 
dled^ (1551 — this is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford); 
Martinus Duncanus's AnabaptistlccE Hcreseos Cov/n'a- 
iio,etvere Christiaiti Baptisnii, ac Potissintum Pedobap- 
iismatis Asseriio^etc. 1549, [a copy of which is in the Bod- 
leian Library, Oxford] ; Guy de Erez's De IP^ortel, de 
Oorspronch, en Jiet Fondamcnt der IVeder-dooPeren van 
ojisentijde^ etc. [first published in 1565, and again in 1570 
— of which edition a copy is in the RIennonite Library 
in Amsterdam. It was published also in French, from 
which portions, translated by "J. S." — the Catalogue of 
the Antiquarian Society at Worcester, says " Joshua Scot- 
tow" — were printed at Cambridge, N. E. in 166S; of 
which copies areinthe Antiquarian, and Mass. Hist. Soc. 
Libraries tmdcr the title of The Rise^ S firing- and Foun- 
dation of the Anabaptists, or Rebaptized, o/onr TiinCy 
etc. 4® pp. 52] ; Cartwrighi's Two Letters ivritten oner 
itiio England: the one to a godly Ladic.,ivhere:7t the 
Anabaftistes errours are confuted, etc. (15S9) ; Calvin's 
A Short Instruction /or to arsne all good Christian 
people agaynst the pestiferous errours cf the common 
Secte of Anabaptistes, etc. (1544 — this is in the Bodleian. 
It was printed again at London in 1549) ; and the work 
of Pagitt, above quoted. The godly Henry Ainsworth — 



one of the gentlest, loveliest and most learned of the 
English DrowTiists — had published in 1623,^ Season- 
able Discourse ; or a Censure upon a Dialogue of the 
A nabaptists, f^c, which came to a second edition in 1642, 
and a third in 1644. [Among other books that one would 
do well to consult who wishes to complete his knowledge 
of the subject, may be named : Catrou's Hiitoire dcs A «- 
abatvstes iant en Alletnagnef Hollande gu\4nglcierre, 
etc. Paris, 1615 ; J. GasUns^s De A fuibaptisniicxordiot 
erroribus, historiis aboniinandis^ coufutationibus ad- 
jeciis^eic. Easileae, 1544; Melancthon's Advcrsus An- 
abaptistasjudicium^etc; J. H. Ovi\\X'^% Annalcs Ana- 
baptisiici,hoc est, Historia miiversaCis de Anabaptist- 
arum origi}ie,progress7t^ftciionibus ct schisuiatisy etc. 
Basilc-E, 1672 ; and Kerssen brock's Geschichte dcr IVie- 
derlaujfer zu Aliinster, etc. 1771.] 

i^" I cite here, under the veil of the original Latin, one 
scene winch appears to possess abundant authentica- 
tion as having occurred at Amsterdam in 1535: "Inuico 
Salinario/tfrt««w-V/<5(?W;«habitabat, pannicida. Abcrat 
is per hos dies procul i domo in orientalib. urbibus, ubi 
nogotiabant. Hue septem uiri et quinquc fccmincs con- 
vcnerant: inter quos unus,cui Theodorito h:ixKox\ women 
erat, se prophetam dixerat. Mani pauIo post tcriiam 
horam, in sccretiori aidium parte pronum se in terramad 
orandum prophela in conspcctu omnium porrcxit. Dum 
oral, tantus omnibus horror in cessit, ut locus ipsis mo- 
ueri, & omnia trcmerc uidercntur. . . Qna'.uor 
horis doccndo & prccaudo absumptis, prophcta galcam 
capiti detractam, & thoraccm fcncum cxutum, cnsem & 
alia bellica instrumcnta cxcussa, in igncm congcs^lt. His 
spoliatus, totus stetit nudus, ut non esset quo ca quae ab 
oculis homioum sunt rcmoucnda, & natura tegi haberi 



[114] 

inent good men, whose opinions they had been accustomed to receive on other 
subjects with the greatest deference, referring to such Anabaptists with a degree 
of reprobation^^ which was surely calculated to impair the welcome with which 
they might receive any new comers avowing that peculiar faith. 

The first mention of Anabaptism in the history of the New England colonies 
appears to be in connection with Mr. Williams, and his new settlement at Provi- 
dence ; where early in 1638, becoming convinced that he had not been himself 
baptized, and seeing no other way to obtain the pure ordinance, he submitted 
to it at the hands of one Ezekiel Hollyman; after which he turned round and 
himself rebaptized Hollyman and some ten others.*^ This course of procedure 
was not, in itself, calculated to increase the respect felt by the Massachusetts 
men for this ism. Nor was the matter much mended, when, a few months after 
— on the logical ground that Hollyman had been, on this theory, unbaptized 
(and therefore unauthorized to administer the rite) when rebaptizing him — Mr. 



que occulta uoluit, conderentur. Mandat sub hsc imjie- 
riose sex cxterls, ut suo exampio se totos cxuant. Par- 
ucrunt iussui. Inde & foeminx uirorum exemplum se- 
cuix, adc6 omnem uestitum posuerunt, ut iion cssct 
funiculus reliquus, quo capitis comas substringerent, nulla 
natural! uericundia ductx. Sic enim ccnsuerat propheta, 
uniucrsum id quod h terra natum factumque cssct, in 
igncmconjici oportere, holocaustum Deo id futurum arbi- 
tratus. Grauis dirusque fatoruestium igne correptarum, 
totam iam domum ita opplcuerat, ut muiier domus hos- 
pita, qux liarum rerum ignara ominum crat, eo cxpcr- 
rccta, Iccto exiiret, focos exploratura, ccquod incendium 
usquara esset. In tabulatum sursum progressa, nudos 
undcclm promiscuos ibi offendit. Cui ilUco pro imix'rio 
mandat, ut & ipsa ad prxescriptum se ostenderet. Ob- 
tenipcrauit nulla mora, uestes in focum super accruum 
aliarum cumulauit. Ita nudatis duodccim, nondum 
liqucbat, quid rerum inceptarent. Ibi omnibus imperat 
propbcta, ut currcndo, clamandoque se imitarcntur. 
Mox in publicum domo egressi horribili clamore per ur- 
bem sursum deotsum dimidiatam peniagantur. Clamor 
conseniiens omnium hie eral: I'ae, ttacj »ac; diuina 
vindicta ; dtittrta uindicta ; dmtna uindicta. Nun- 
quam in uita mnrialium mugitus horrendior fuit auditus, 
nee existimabant horribiliorem uUo xuo cxaudiri posse- 
Ciucs armati in publicum prosillunt, & forum iuuadunt, 
rati ab hosiibus urbcm captam fuisse. Capti omnes in 
uincula ducuntur, extra unan) muliercm. Hxe qu6 fuc- 
rii delapsa, inter nullos constarc uidco. In curia dum 
nudi sedcnt, nulla ucrccundia tacii, uestitum oblatum 
reicceruul; tegi pertlnaciter recusantes, jit ««i/tiw Hz-r/- 
/rt/fw/ «jtf dictitarunu (Lamb. Horicns. TvmvU. Aun- 
ba/'tist.etc.{c^. 1543)50-61.] Inalittlebook, nowmarked 
aa " ranssime " by the dealers, pnntcd at Lcydcn in the 



year before John Robinson and liis company went thither 
from Amsterdam, entitled Apocalypsis hui^niutn Ali^ 
quot UiEresiarckarvm^ etc. is given [p- 5o] a disgusting 
portrait of this "prophet" tailor ; which is surely ugly 
enough to take some possibility of genuineness. [See ad- 
ditional details in Pontanus Rerutn et nrbis A m. Hist. 
(1611) 351 Wagenaar's Amsterdatn,, \: 239-247; and 
Brandt's ///j^ Ref. (London, 1720)1: 66.] 

**^ I have never examined Calvin's work above referred 
to [note 439] ; but I find him in his preface to his /^jryr/wv 
pannyckia^ calling the Anabaptists a "nefarious herd," and 
adding : " against whom notliing I have said, equals their 
deserts." [Calvin's Tracts, (ed. Edinburgh, m.dcccli) 
iii: 416.] Bullinger calls them the " very messengers of 
Sathan himselfe." \.Fiflie Godly and Leartud Sermons, 
etc.ifi^ i5S7)p. 569.] Ainsworthsaidof the Anabaptists: 
" very ignorantly and erroneously have they propounded 
their opinion; with some truth mixing much error, that 
the blind may lead the blind into the ditch." [Season^ 
abic Discottrse^Gd. 1644, 13.] In the y^/tJtra/y/rw above 
cited [note 440) occurs the following: "Anabaptistarum 
doctrina. Lector candide, simpliciter mendacium est, & 
fucus. Tu cos Divinipotes ac Prophetas censes? Falle- 
ris. Pseudoprophctx sunt & falsi doctores. Quorum 
colluvionc ac pcslc ncgo ab orbc condito quidquam no- 
centiusex Avernifaucibusprodijsse." [iii-1 Even Jeremy 
Taylor declared (and this was as late as 1647) that Ana- 
baptism is "as much to be rooted out as anytliing that 
is the greatest i^est and nuisance to the public iatcrest." 
\,Liberty cf Proplusyiugy sec 19.] 

••^ Wjnthrop's Jour^uil^ i : 293. Wintlirop says that 
Mr. Williams was seduced into Anabaptist views by the 
influence of Mrs. Scott, a sister of ihat famous disturber* 
Mistress Anne Hutchinson. 



["5] 

Williams renounced the rebaptism, and remained for the rest of his days — 
under the name of " Seeker " — a " Come-outer " from all religious rites and 
organisms.'"" A little before this time certain English clergymen had sent over 
a list of thirty-two questions in regard to religious affairs in New England, one 
of which (the 30th) was to the point whether all the New England churches 
were agreed in their faith and procedures. In 1643 an answer, drawn up by 
Richard Mather'"* was printed, in which, in reply to this question, it is 
affirmed that all the churches in the plantations of Plymouth, the Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut agreed together ; but that Anabaptism existed at Provi- 
dence, and Familism at Rhode Island."^ 

The next we hear is in July 1641, when Winthrop says of the Rhode Island 
people : *^ 

Divers of them turned professed Anabaptists, and would not wear any arms, and denied all 
magistracy among Christians, and maintained that there were no churches since those founded 
by the Apostles and Evangelists, nor could any be, nor any pastors ordained, nor seals admin- 
istered, but by such ; and that the church was to want these all the time she continued in the 
wilderness, as yet she was. 

The words which I have here italicised, indicate that these Anabaptists who 
were thus introducing the doctrine into New England, were infected with some, 
at least, of the loose and offensive notions which had characterized the sect in 
Europe, and in its earlier days. 

In July 1644, one Thomas Painter, then of Hingham, who seems to have 
been an idle, obstinate and rather worthless person,''^" suddenly turned Anabap- 
tist, and, " having a child born, he would not suffer his wife to bring it to the 
ordinance of baptism." The matter was aggravated by the fact that he was 
not himself a member of any church, although his wife was ; and by his " obsti- 
nacy " and "very loose behaviour." They thought they exercised much patience 
with him, but finally :'"' 

because he was very poor, so as no other but corporal punishment could be fastened upon him, 
he was ordered to be whipped ; not for his opinion, but for reproaching the Lord^s ordinance, and 
for his bold and evil behaviour, both at home and in the court. 



"^Ibid, \: 307. 

444 "There is a book which bears the title oi An A n- 
svjer 0/ tlte Ettters, etc. printed in the year 1643 : Of 
which Book my father Mather was the Sole author." 
[Increase Mather's Order 0/ tlu Gospel, etc. 73.] 

**•'" Conformity to the Lyturglc and Ceremonies in 
some places to the Northward, A tuibaptisttte at Provi- 
dence, and Familisme at Aquidneck, hinders that we can- 
not say the same of them. " \,A nswer o/tfu Elders, S2. ] 



"" Winthrop's yonrnat, ii : 38. 

**^ Winthrop says he had " been scandalous and biu-- 
densomc by his idle and troublesome behaviour," in the 
three places (New Haven, Rowley and Charlestown) 
where he had lived before coming to his present abode. 
Savage [note to Winthropl says lie probably was com- 
plained of by Rowley, or Charlestown. [jfourntil, ii: 
.74-1 

^^Ibuif'-a: 175. 



[ii6] 

Whether this unwise — yet, under all the circumstances, by no means extra- 
ordinary — procedure had anything to do with it, or not, so many symptoms of 
approaching Anabaptism about this time manifested themselves, as to lead the 
General Court after much consideration and conference to enact a statute, 
which is worth quoting here in full for the revelation which it makes of the 
exact aspect in which the subject then presented itself to the most intelligent 
civilians and divines of Massachusetts. It was put upon the statute-book, 13- 
23 November 1644 :**" 

Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully S: often pved yt since ye first arising of yc Anabap- 
tists, about a hundred years since, they have bene ye incendiaries of comon wealths, & ye 
infectors of persons in maine mattrs of religion, & ye troublers of churches in all places where 
they have bene ; & yt they who have held ye baptizing of infants unlawfuU have usually held othf 
errors or heresies togethr therewith, though they have (as othr hereticks use to do) concealed 
ye same, till they spied out a fit advantage & oportuiiity to vent ym by way of question or scru- 
ple; & whereas divers of this kind have, since or comeginto New England, appeared amongst 
orselvcs, some whereof have (as othrs before ym) denied ye ordinance of magistracy, &ye 
lawfulnes of making warr, & othrs ye lawfulnes of mairats, & their inspection into any breach of 
ye first table ; wch opinions, if they should be connived at by us, are like to be increased amongst 
us, & so must necessarily bring guilt upon us, infection & trouble to ye churches, cS: hazard to 
ye whole comon wealth, — 

It is ordered & agreed yt if any pson or psons w'I'in ys jurisdiction shall eithr openly con- 
demne or oppose ye baptizs of infants, or go about secretly to seduce othrs frotn ye appbation 
or use thereof, or shall purposely depart ye congregation at ye administration of ye ordinance, or 
shall deny ye ordinance of magistracy, or their lawfuU right or authority to make warr, or to 
punish je outward breaches of ye first tabic, & shall appear to ye Cort wilfully & obstinately to 
continue therein after due time & raeanes of conviction, every such pson or psons shalbe sen- 
tenced to banishmt. 

There are two or three entries following upon the records, which are rather 
remarkable, and which find explanation in an elaborate document bearing date 
two years afterward, for the preservation of which we are indebted to the care 
of Gov. Hutchinson. In the autumn of 1645 divers persons made request for some 
alteration in this law, but the Court " voted y' y° lawe mentioned should not be 
altered at all, nor explained."''^ In the following spring seventy-eight persons, 
chiefly residents of Dorchester and Roxbur\% petitioned that the statute should 
not be altered, but continued " w'''out abrogation or weakening ; " which was 
granted.''^ A few months later the General Court adopted a Declaration, called 
out by a Petition and Remonstrance which had been addressed to them by 
seven persons, chief of whom were Samuel Maverick, and Dr. Robert Child, 



*>" Mojs. Cel. Hei:. \\ : Si. I *^'/iiJ,u: 149 ; iii : 64. " The Courte gratefully accept 

*^/6id,ii: i4i;iii:si. 1 of their acknowledgemenS graunting their request." 



[117] 



making complaint of the government for various reasons, and threatening to 
appeal to Parliament. In that Declaration they say:^^- 

They are offended also at our lawe against Anabaptists, The truth is, the great trouble we 
have bcene putt unto and hazard also, by familisticall and anabaptisticall s[mhsj tu/iose con- 
science and religion hatk been only to sett forth themselves and raise contentions in the country^ did 
provoke us to provide for oar safety by a lawe, that all such should take notice, how unwelcome 
they should be unto us, either comeing or staying. But for snch as differ from its only in judg- 
ment^ in point of baptism, or some other points of lesse consequence, and live peaceably amongst 
tiSy without occasioning disturbance, &c., stich have no cause to complaine ; for it hath never beene 
as yet putt in execution against any oftkent^ although such are knowne to Hve amongst us. 

An explanation was also given in England by Mr. Winslow, which was by 
authority,**^ and which was, as follows i'*'^' 

Von have a severe law against Anabaptists, yea one was whipt at Massachusets for his 
Religion ? And your law banisheth ihcm ? 

Ans. 'Tis true, the Massachusets Governement have such a law as to banish, but not to 
whip in that kinde. And certaine men desiring some mitigation of it j It was answered in my 
hearing : 'Tis true, we have a severe law, but wee never did, or will, execute the rigour of it 
upon any, and have men living amongst us, nay some in our Churches of that judgment, and as 
long as they carry themselves peaceably as hitherto they doe, wee will leave them to God, our 
selves having performed the duty of brethren to them. And whereas there was one whipt 
amongst us ; 'tis true wee knew his judgment what it was : but had hee not carried himselfe so 
contemptuously towards the Authority God halh betrusted us with in an high exemplary meas- 
ure, wee had never so censured him : and therefore he may thank himself who suffered as an 
evill doer in that respect. *■''' But the reason ivherefore wee are loath cither to repeale or alter the 
lazv, is, Because wee would have it rcmaine in force to bcare ivitnesse against their judgement and 
practice^ which toe conceive them to be erroneous.'''' 

At the very time when this law had been passed, a minister who denied the 
lawfulness of Pedo-Baptism was President of the infant Harvard College ; while 
the divine who was elected, in 1654, to be his successor, believed immersion 



*■•'- Hutchinson Papers, 216. 

*^3"0iir hono'ed Gov^n'", Deputy Gov'ti'", Rich : Bel- 
linRhnm, Esq.,& M'. Auditor Gen'all are appointed a 
comiitee to pusc Zl examine all the answ" y' are brought 
into this Co'tc to y° petition of Docto' Child & M'. 
Fowie, &c., & out of all to draw up such an answ' there- 
to as they thinke most meele, & psent y« same to this 
Co''te. Sz/nrthr to ireate zutU Mr. ll^inslozu &' tj agree 
•wth him as an agent for us, to answer to what shalbe 
obiecied against lis in England, Si givcing cnga;;emcnt 
to y" said M' Winslow accordingly." [Mass. Cot. Kec, 
ii; 162,] 

*^ liypocrisig Unmasked, etc. loi. 

*" I take it the reference here is to the case of Painter 
before mentioned, [p. 115.] 



4MQov. Leverett, and others, in the Iclter to Hon. 
Robert Boyle to which I have already referred [sec note 
313 ante] give much the same account of this matter. It 
will be remembered that they wrote in 1673. They say : 
"Hence, [on account of the general alarm fell at the 
dangers threatened, by Anabaptism, etc.] from our first 
times, laws have been made to secure us from ihnt dan- 
ger; which have, at some times, upon just occasions, 
been executed, upon some of th.nt sort of [leoplc, who 
have exceeded the rules of moderation in maticrs of 
practice : but this we may say truly, that some peaceable 
Anabaptists, and some of other sects, who have deported 
tiiemselves quietly, have and do live here, under llie pro- 
tection of this government, undisturbedly." [Letter, etc 
Appendix Xo Life 0/ Hon. Rob. Boyle, 456.] 



[ii8] 

essential to the validity of the rite ;^' so that there certainly seems to be some 
evidence, at least, that the case was as stated above. 

In the autumn of 1648, a little excitement was temporarily caused in conse- 
quence of some "great misdemeanor," committed by Edward Starbuck, of 
Dover, one of the Assistants, "with profession of Anabaptistry j^ but nothing 
is set down as having come of it. 

Five years after the statute took its place on the records, we find traces of 
uneasiness in Massachusetts over the fact that the older Plymouth Colony — 
par excelletice, the " Old" Colony — was exercising towards the Anabaptists a tol- 
eration which it was feared would grow to a common danger. One Obadiah 
Holmes, a native of Preston, England, who had been excommunicated from the 
church in Salem, and had removed to Rehoboth and, in some way, joined 
himself to Mr. Newman's church; in 1649 seceded from the same with eight 
others and organized an Anabaptist church.'"'^ He was excommunicated again 
and his companions also, while the Plymouth Court was petitioned to take action 
in the premises. That Court responded by enjoining these schismatics " to 
refrain from practices disagreeable to their brethren," and citing them to appear 
before it; on which appearance, Holmes and two others were merely bound 
over in ;^io, one for another.^®* Whereupon the General Court of Massachu- 
setts wrote a letter to the General Court of Plymouth, complaining of their 
lenity, and urging a greater stringency ; asking them to consider that " the 
infeccon of such diseases, being so neere vs, are likely to spread into our juris- 
diccon, etc."^°' It does not appear that any Plymouth action followed this inter- 
cession, but Holmes, with a few of his followers, soon removed to Newport, 
where he joined himself to the Anabaptist church, which some five years before 
had been formed there by Dr. John Clarke, and his friends.'"^ 

Some months before this, William Coddington, sick of the unsettled state of 
civil affairs, which proved to be the result of the unorganized individualism 
which was then the key-note of the Rhode Island plantations, exaggerated by 



*^' Qiuacy^s ///si. Har. Univ. i: 18,25. 

*^jVtiss. Col. Kcc. ii: 253. 

"> Bliss's //;i/. Rclwliollt, 205. 

•"Baylics's If hi. Mem. Plym. Col. ii: 210; Plym. 
Col. Rcc. ii; 147, 156, 162. 

'^' Mass. Col. Recm: 173. The letter begins: "Wee 
have heard hccretoforc of diuerse Annabaptists, arisen vp 
in your jurisdiccon, and connived at ; but being but few, 
wee well hoi>ed that it misht have pleased God, by the 
endeavo's of yourselves and the faithfull ciders w^ yow, 
to have reduced such erring men againe into the right 
way. But now, to our great greife, wee are credibly in- 



formed that your patient bearing w"> such men liath 
p.duccd another effect, namely, the multiplying and en- 
creasing of the same errors, and wee feare maybe of other 
errors also, if timely care be not taken to suppresse the 
same. Pcrticulerly wee vndersland that \v*''in this few 
weekcs there have binn at Se.T Cuncke thirtecne or fower- 
tccne p'sons rcbaptized (a swiftc progrcsse in one tounc ;) 
yett wee he.ire not of any effectuall restriccon is cntend- 
cd thereabouts, clc" Seekonk had been the original In- 
dian name of Rehoboth. 

•*^B.ackus's Hist. N. Eng. i: 149. He thinks the 
Cbtuch must have been formed in 1644, or earlier. 



[119] 

the normal fact of the eccentric and impracticable character of many of the 
individuals who were then naturally attracted, or driven, thither ;'"'^ had gone to 
England to see if something could not be done in the way of remedy. He 
there obtained leave from the Council of State to institute a separate govern- 
ment for the islands of Rhode Island and Conanicut j'"^ he to be Governor, 
with a Council of not more than six Assistants.^*^ In the autumn of 1650, it 
was understood that he was on his way home with this new instrument, and it 
was further understood that it was Mr. Coddington's desire, and intention, to 
bring about under it, if possible, the introduction of Rhode Island into the 
Confederacy then existing of the other Colonies, if not absolutely to procure its 
annexation to Massachusetts. Clarke and Coddington had not been on the 
best of terms since the disturbance occasioned by Nicholas Easton,'""' and, with 
many of his Newport adherents, the Anabaptist pastor was bitterly opposed to 
the new-coming order of things. When the crisis approached, he seems to have 
felt tliat a little persecution of the Anabaptists — if such a thing could be man- 
aged — by Massachusetts, might serve an important purpose, in prejudicing the 
Rhode Island mind against Coddington's scheme.*' An occasion appears 
accordingly to have been made by which the red flag of the Anabaptistical 
fanaticism could be flouted full in the face of the Bay bull. 

Among the early settlers of Lynn was one William Witter, a farmer residing 
at Swampscott, who, as early as 1643, had become so inspired with the genius 
of Anabaptism as to call infant baptism "a badge of the whore." ^ By 1646 he 
had progressed in this lovely spirit so far as to declare " y' they who stayed 
whiles a child is baptized, doe worshipp y° Dyvell," and " broake y" Saboath."*'' 
Knowledge of his case reaching Mr. Clarke, a pilgrimage was determined upon 
for the purpose of public sympathy with this person, if not his open rebaptism, 
and reception into the Newport fellowship.''™ Such an expedition had in itself 



*03Dr. Palfrey does not hesitate to intimate that the 
Khode Island colonies then took the social sewerage of 
their neighbors — to tlic benefit of the latter : * ' 1 1 was an 
advantage to iinvc, near by, a sufficient receptacle for the 
overflow of communities which would be the more whole- 
some for being drained." [Hist, N. En^.W: 343.] 

'■^^ Conanicut was the island lying between Rhode 
Island and what is Kingstown — now incorporated as 
the to\vn of Jamestown. 

*^-' Journal fl/ tlit Council 0/ Staie^ State Paper Office, 
cited by Pat/rcy, ii : 344. 

*oc winthrop's ytJwrHrt/, ii : 40. 

«r«if Massachusetts was intolerant of Baptists, and 
if the execution of Coddington's scheme would place the 
Rhode Island Baptists more or less under her control, 



the necessity of self-defence admonished them that, if 
possible, that scheme should be defeated. . . . He 
judged well, that, at this moment, some striking practical 
evidence of the hostility of Massacliusetts to Baptists 
would be efficacious to excite his Rhode Island friends to 
oppose the ascendency of Coddington." [ Palfrey's ///V^ 
N. E>ig.\\: 3 so,] 

*'^ Lewis and Newhall's A nnnU of Lytnt, 209. 

'«yl/(«j. Col. Roc. iii: 67. The tcilerant spirit of the 
Court comes out here in the record : *' y' Court expst their 
patience low'ds him, only admonishing him till tliey see 
if he contincwobstiuate, etc." Sea dXso Lc-wis &* Nov/' 
Itall, 219. 

*'°Gov. Arnold [Hist. R. /. i; 234] says the church 
"deputed" Clarke, and his two companions, "to visit 



[I20] 



a promising look. It would lead through Boston, yet not far enough beyond it, 
to imperil tlie desired publicity. Yet nothing was neglected which should rea- 
sonably avail for fullest success. Clarke himself had left Boston fourteen years 
before to avoid being sent away, and he knew that his presence in the Massa- 
chusetts must bring him at once under the operation of the Anabaptist law of 
1644 ; while, as an Assistant under the Rhode Island government,*'^ and as pas- 
tor of the Newport Anabaptists, he doubdess felt himself to be sufficiently a 
man of mark to be tolerably sure of being "persecuted.'* But, for further 
security against failure, he took along with him John Crandall, son-in-law of 
Samuel Gorton ; and also — to make assurance doubly sure — that very Oba- 
diah Holmes who, a short time before, had been the occasion of the complain- 
ing letter of the Massachusetts Court to that at Plymouth. 

The scheme succeeded perfectly. Saturday, 19-29 July 165 1, saw this mis- 
sionary company, after a three days' progress through the enemy's territory,*^ at 
their journey's end. Possibly it had been their original intent to attend Messrs. 
Whiting and Cobbett's "meeting "on Sunday morning and interrupt the same /^ 
but when the time came, not seeing their way clear to that, Mr. Clarke preached 
at Witter's house to his two companions, their host and a few others who gathered 



an aged member, residing near Lynn, etc." But Witter 
was not %ovcry "aged" — being only then about 67 [Sav- 
age's Gen. Diet, iv: 620;] nor does it appear to be by 
any means certain that he was a member of the New- 
port Church, or of any other. Backus, indeed, professes 
to quote [i: 215] from the "Newport Church Papers," 
the statement that Witter was "a brother in the church, 
who, by reason of his advanced age, could not undertake 
so great a journey as to \'isit the church." But one can- 
not help thinking that those " Papers" must have been 
wxitien long afit-r the date of the occurrence (as is the 
obvious fact with some of the "Papers*' of the First 
Baptist Church of Providence — which are not in accord 
with the truth of histon-,) and that their author confused 
the order of even'vs. It is ccruin that neither Clarke 
nor Holmes, in the minutely circumstantial account 
which immediately after both gave [IllNewes, e/c] say 
anything about being sent by the church; nor about 
Witter's being a churcli-member. They say they went 
"upon occasion of busincsse." They speak (a year 
after) of him, as a Baptist with themselves ; but in no way 
do they intimate that he had previously been such, ex- 
cept in desire. Furthermore Lewis and Newhall [W«- 
ruth^etc. 230] say that Clarke rebaptized Witter on this 
occasion. This view receives strong support: (i)from 
the language of the mittimus [4 Mass. Hist. CoL ii : 3 1 J 
which consigned the three men to Boston jail : " for sus- 
pition of ha%'ing their hands in the rebapUztng of one, 
etc" (nobody suggesting that any person other than Wit- 



ter was now rebaptized ;) (2) from the language of the 
sentence, Xlbid., 3=] which declared iliat Clarke had "ad- 
ministered the sacrament of the Supper to one excom- 
municate person [ Holmes,] to another under admonition, 
and to another that was an inhabitant of Lin, and not 
in fellowship with any church " [who was this, if it were 
not Witter?] ; (3) from the fact that Wiiterwas presented 
at the Salem Court, in the November following, "yfer 
beinse rebaptized,''^ \_SaUm Court Rec. 25, 9 mo. 1651]: 
which is a very remarkable fact if he had been, as Backus 
and Arnold claim, a member of the Newport Anabaptist 
Church for years ; but which was a perfectly natural oc- 
currence, if, after having been inclined for a long period 
to Anabaptist views, he had now been rebaptized by 
Clarke on this visit, — ostensibly on "business," but 
really for this puq)osc. The preponderance of evidence 
seems to me very clearly against the statement which 
has been common among Baptists, and which I see that 
my friend the learned professor of Ecclesiastical His- 
tory in the Baptist Theological Seminary at Newton, is 
repealing in " Centennial Notes" in a prominent jour- 
nal of that denomination, while these pages are going 
through the press. 

<■»;?. /. Col. Rec. i: 216, 220. 

*"2 Qarke's III Kcivcs from Nru> England, etc, 1-4. 

*^ " Not having freedom in our Spirits for want of a 
clear Call from God to goe unto the PubUke Assemblie 
to declare there what was tlie mind, and counseU of God 
concerning them." [/^idt] 



[121] 

with them.^"^ They were interrupted by two constables with a warrant, and 
taken to the "ordinary" for safe keeping. In tlie afternoon the officers carried 
them to "the meeting," where they deliberately put on their hats in time of 
prayer, (and kept them on until the constables " plucked " them off,) while 
Clarke went to reading a book, and, as soon as there was a pause, sprang to his 
feet and desired " to propose a few things." The pastor wanted to know whether 
he were a member of any church, and the magistrate, who had issued the war- 
rant (Robert Bridges) said that if the congregation were willing to hear him he 
might speak, otherwise not ; and Clarke beginning at once to attack the church 
as " not constituted according to the order of our Lord, &c.," the congregation 
concluded not to be willing, and he was soon silenced. On Monday they were 
examined by this magistrate, who decided to send them to Boston jail until the 
next Court ; but, in some way giving him the slip, they managed to get back to 
Witter's, where they completed their interrupted service, and Clarke adminis- 
tered the Lord's Supper, having, it would seem, previously rebaptized Wit- 
ter. On Tuesday Bridges made out his minimus, and they were lodged in 
prison in Boston. The ne.xt week on Thursday — 31 July-io Aug. 1651^ 
they had their trial. Being charged with Anabaptism Clarke disowned the 
name, and denied that he had ever rebaptized any ; on the trickish plea that, 
since one's first child-baptism was no baptism, he had never /r-baptized. He 
further " testified " against the Court ; as did his companions. All ended in 
their being fined — as was usual in those days, to be whipped if they could not 
pay — and imprisoned until the matter be adjusted, the one way or the other. 
Endecott, as he was so apt to do, lost his temper while talking with Clarke, 
and said as much as that, while the Newport Anabaptist might have some suc- 
cess in dealing with weak-minded persons, he could do nothing whatever in an 
argument with the ministers ; which Clarke insisted was tantamount to a promise 
to grant him a public disputation, and began to petition for that. The project 
seems to have been entertained by the magistrates, but before anything came of 
it somebody paid Clarke's fine, and he was very willing to leave for home.''''' 
The same thing was done with Crandall. Holmes seems to have had sterner 
stuff. Although " there were who would have paid the money*'" if he would 
accept it," he "durst not accept of deliverance in such a way."*'' He accord- 
ingly received thirty stripes.''"'* When, in the following year, Clarke published 



<"* " And to 4 or 5 Strangers, that came in unexpected 
after I had begun.'* Udid.\ 

o-'Ibid, 13. 

"° His fine was Cl°- [/*'</•] 

*" See his letter to London, detailing the entire trans- 
action, in Clarke's /// Nrwcs, ilc, 19. 



•^'Arnold thinks he was "cruelly whipped." {Uist, 
R, I.\: 235]. Dut Clarke says "it w.is so easie to me, 
that 1 could well bear it, yea and in a manner felt it 
not ; " and that he told the magistrates after it was over: 
"you have struck me as with Roses" [Hi Newes, etc. 
22.] Dr. Palfrey suspects the executioner had orders 



[I22] 

his version of all this in England, he was careful to declare that one purpose 
which he had in view in it all, was to make known "how that spirit by which 
they [the Massachusetts authorities] are led, would order the whole World, if 
cither brought under them, or should come in unto them ;*"' — that is, how they 
would treat Rhode Island Baptists, were they to be annexed to their Colony. 

The careful reader of New England history for that year will be apt to find, 
in the state of mind toward Massachusetts produced at Newport by this epi- 
sode, and the relation of that state of mind to the reception of Coddington's 
plans after his return — the exact date of which is not given, but which ap- 
pears to have been a few days subsequent to the whipping of Holmes'*^ — 
the ground of what at the least will be a strong suspicion that there was 
a wheel within a wheel here revolving, and that the Massachusetts men in this 
thing, if sinning, were also adroitly made to serve a purpose in Rhode Island 
politics by their sin. 

A few years passed in comparative quiet, when trouble arose in Charlestown. 
One Thomas Gould, a member of the church then under the care of Zachariah 
Symmes and Thomas Shepard, withheld his child from baptism. The church 
labored with and admonished him, but seem to have had long patience with 
him, in the face of unjjecoming, if not contemptuous, conduct on his part. In 
the autumn of 1656 and the spring of 1657, he was dealt with by the County 
Court for his error. The next year, as he constantly neglected the Lord's 
Day meetings, he "was admonished for his breaking away from the church in 
weighty schism, and never having used any means to convince the church of 
any irregular proceeding, but continueing peremptiously and contumaceously to 
justifie his schisme."'"" He gradually found sympathizers, and on Sunday 8-18 
Nov. 1663 a private meeting was organized at his house which — 28 May-7 
June 1665 — grew into the first Baptist church of the Colony.*^ The church 
under Mr. Symmes, not being able to secure any tokens of repentance, on the 
30th July-9 Aug. following, excommunicated them, "for their impertinency in 
their schismatical withdrawing from the church, and neglecting to hear the 
church.''*' The Court then took action. Gould and his companions were sol- 
emnly charged " not to persist in such pernicious practises." All ended in 
their adherence to their course, and their being disfranchised and fined, and^ 
as they would not pay their fines — in their temporary imprisonment. 



"to vindicate what they thought the majesty of the law, 
at little cost to the delioquent." IHist. A'. £n^. ii: 

353-] 

*'■' III :^cwrs, etc. i. 

""Qarke [4 Mass. Hist. Coll. ii: 44,] gives the date of 
Holines's sentence as 31 July-io Aug. 1651 ; while Ar- 



nold [I/ist. K. I.'i: 23S] places " August, 1651 *' in the 
margin of his reference to Coddington's reaching Rhode 
Island on his return. 

**' Charlestown Church Records^ 6th 4th mo. 1658. 

**- Now the First Baptist Church of Boston. 

*" Ibid, sui die 30 July, 1665. 



After a time something led the General Court to try another course, and a 
great debate as to the matters at issue began by appointment, on the 14-24 
April 166S, between Revs. John Allin of Dedham, Thomas Cobbett of Ipswich, 
John Higginson of Salem, Samuel Danforth of Roxbury, Jonathan Mitchell of 
Cambridge and Thomas Shepard of Charlestown ; and Gould, with seven sym- 
pathizers, three of whom were from Newport. Two days were spent in close 
discussion, " wth a great concourse of people,'' the effect of which — as might 
have been anticipated — was not as "prevalent wth " these Baptists, as the 
Court "could haue desired ;" so that, neither party yielding, the chief offenders 
— Gould, Turner and Farnum — were banished, and refusing to leave, v/ere 
again imprisoned. Strong sympathy was called out in their behalf. A petition 
with sixty-six signers interceded for them. But Gould was not set at liberty 
until in 1670. The society retreating to Noddles Island, a warrant was issued 
against them there/'^ 

Various petty persecutions followed, and although in March 16S1-2 the 
messengers of the colony were instructed to inform the king that *' as for the 
Annabaptists, they are now subject to no other poenal statutes then those of the 
Congregational way ;" it cannot be denied that as compared with the " Stand- 
ing Order," the Baptists, in one way or another, did have more or less cause of 
complaint ; until, so lately as 1834, the amendment to the third article of the 
Bill of Rights put a final end to the policy inherited from the mother coun- 
try, and cherished for more than two hundred years, under which all " dissent- 
ers" had to a greater or less extent suffered. 

It seems fair, notwithstanding all here set down, to claim for our fathers a 
course of procedure toward the Baptists which was liberal for that time ; as it 
surely was far more humane than that which the professors of the same faith 
received in the father-land.^^ 



*** This story of Gould (or Cold, as his name was then 
spelled) is told at considerable length by Mr. Frothlns- 
ham \_History of Cluirlcitotuu^ 163-172] and is much dwelt 
upon also by Backus\\'. 355--1I5-] See further, Mass. 
CoL Rec. V : 271, 272, 347 ; and S. Willard's Ne Stiior 
Ultra Crepidam^ etc. 16S1. 4to. pp. 27. 

*8-'A glance at the facts will show that the Baptists 
were more persecuted, and longer persecuted, in Eng- 
land than here. Edward Wightmau had been burned 
at Curton-upon-Trcnt, 11-21 April 161 1, for being a Bajj- 
tist. [Crosby's //^w^ £'«^. ^/i/. > : ^^^S; Ivimey's//ij/. 
Eng. Bap. 1: 123; Evans's Early Eu^. Bap. \\ 233.] 
Edward Barber, minister to a small Baptist congregation 
in London, was thrown into prison in 164 1, and kept 
there eleven months '*for denying the baptism of in- 



fants." \Crosbyy i: 219; Ivintey, i: 163.] Ilanserd 
Knollys was more than once imprisoned for tlie same 
cause. [Crasi'y,\x 22G-232.] Samuel Gates in 1G46 
lay for some time in irons, and was tried for his life for 
immersing a female, and was nearly drowned by a mob 
after his acquittal. [Crosby^ i: 236; Ivimey^ i: 197.] 
John Bunyan lay in Bedford jail twelve years, because 
he had been guilty of holding a Baptist "convcnt'clc,"iii 
defiance of the law. [Crosby, ii: 92; Iviincy^i: 301; 
EvanSj ii: 267.] Thomas Grantham — the author, in 
1678, of Christ ianism-.ts Primitivits — was ten times 
thrown into the common jail ; often being kept there for 
months at a time. [Taylor's Hist. En^. Gen. Baptists^ 
i: 2ir; Crosby^ ii: i4>] In 1661 Baptist meetings in 
London were again and again broken up by violence; 



[124] 

It was almost twenty years after the foundations of the Massachusetts Col- 
ony had been laid, before the sect of Quakers began to arise in England. 
George Fox of Drayton in Leicestershire, an ignorant but zealous shoemaker, 
conceiving himself raised up to disapprove of the existing institutions of relig- 
ion, spent a long time in solitude, in roaming up and down the land, in fasting 
and meditation. He was a stern ascetic, clad in leather, and with his mind 
predisposed toward impressions of severe and outlandish duty. He fancied it 
■was revealed to him that "the Lord forbad him to put off his Hat to any Men, 
high or low ; and he was required to Thou and Thee every Man and Woman 
without Distinction, and not to bid People Good Morrow or Good Evening; 
neither might he bow or scrape with his Leg to any one."^ It was furthermore 
"opened to him" that "Physicians, Lawyers, and Priests are generally void of 
that True Knowledge and Wisdom they ought to be guided by,"^' that " Steeple- 
houses " are not " Churches," but are to be cried against as " idol-temples ; " 
and that it was his calling to go about " to declare openly against all sorts of 
Sins," interrupting courts, market-gatherings, and especially church-services ; 
which latter function he carried out in such a way as to make himself, to the 
popular thought, a common nuisance in the northern counties. As a matter of 
course he saw the inside of several prisons. Equally as a matter of course, he 
gained disciples. They called themselves "Friends," sometimes ** Children of 
the Light," because they professed that they had in their conscience the light 
of Christ shining within. But the nickname of Quakers was soon applied to 
them, and has never become outworn,**^ 



and Baptist ministers were thrust into close confinement 
wiihout the ceremony of a warrant. \Crosbyj ii: i6i- 
1G4.] John James, preacher to a London congregation 
of Sevenih-day Baptists, was imprisoned, on pretence of 
treason, and hanged at Tyburn 26 Nov. -6 Dec. 16G1. 
\Crosbyy ii : 165-171; Ivivtcy; i: 320-327; Taylor^ i: 
256-260.] From a Narrative of the A pprthciiding etc. 
0/ John yameSf etc. ^o. 1662, it appears that the poor 
man was treated with infamous barbarity. No sooner 
was the sentence of death passed than the tipstaff seized 
hisc!oaI;, and demanded jiayment for the use of it until 
the day of execution; and the day before his deaih tlie 
hangman came and demanded of him ;C20 (finally offer- 
ing to lake £. 10) to give him an easy death, declaring he 
would torture him exceedingly unless he were paid ; to 
whom James replied: "I must leave that to your mercy, 
for I have nothing to give you." In 1664 twelve Bai> 
lists, ten men and two women, taken at their meeting near 
Ailsbury, were tried and sentenced either to conform to the 
Church of England, or abjure the realm, and refusing to 
to do either, they were sentenced to death— but the king 



finally pardoned them. [Crosby, ii: iSi.] As late aa 
16S5, Elizabeth Gaunt — an Anabaptist who spent most 
of her time in visiting and succoring poor people — was 
arrested at London on a charge of treason, was con- 
demned, and burned at Tybuni (23 Oct. -2 Nov.) 
{Crosby^ iii : 1S5 ; Ivimey^ \\ 455; Bishop Burnet's 
Hist, cf his ffivn T'/w^, 64S.] Crosby says that, about 
1670, the popular enmity rose against the Baptists so in 
England, that they were denied the use of the common 
[unconsecrated] burial places, and some, he says, "have 
been taken out of their graves, drawn upon a sledge to 
their own gales, and there left unburied! " [//«/. Eng. 
Bap. ii: 239 ] And to this day no Baptist however 
saintly in Eng'and, alive or dead, has the same religious 
rights, social position, or privileges of sepulture, as he 
might have were he a Conformist of the most worthless 
character. 

**« Sewel's History o/t/u People called Quakers^etc. 18. 

<^Ubid, 17. 

*M"Gerva5 Bcnnet,*' — a Justice of the Peace, and nn 
I ndcpendcnt, — ' ' hearing that Fox bad him and t !in> -• 



[125] 

The times favored rank growths in morals and religion ; and, by 1654, as 
many as sixty of these ranting reformers were roaming up and down England, 
while emissaries of this " New Light " had crossed the border into Scotland, 
the channel to Ireland,*^ and the North Sea to Zealand and Holland, whence 
— ignorance of the language of the country interfering with their capacity for 
abusively enlightening steeple-house congregations — those who had under- 
taken the Dutch contract returned home, having found " but slight Entertain- 
ment there." ^'^ As the Quakers grew in numbers they grew also in heat, and in 
the capacity of making themselves intensely disagreeable to the average of 
decent people. Abundance of books were published by them, and against them. 
And some of the more extravagant — or insane — of their number, broke out 
into excesses, which sometimes only failed of the guilt of blasphemy by virtue 
of the infinite silliness that was in them. James Nayler, in 1C56, entered Bris- 
tol riding on a horse led by a woman, while other attending women cast scarfs 
and handkerchiefs on the ground before him, the company shouting " Holy, 
Holy, Hosannah in the Highest,^"' etc." ! One Isaac Furnier, having whittled a 
Doctor's title from the post of his door, "because the Spirit did testify so unto 
him," being asked whether, if the Spirit moved him to stab the Doctor with 
his knife, he should do it, answered "yes."'"' One Perrot, getting into prison 
at Rome, wrote letters, in which the Quakers themselves thought " some Sparks 
of Spiritual Pride" might be seen, which he signed "John," in " Imitation (as it 
seems) of the Apostle John."''"^ Edward Burrough, coming into London on the 
23 N0V.-3 Dec. 1658, meeting the funeral procession of Oliver Cromwell at 
Charing Cross, "felt such a Fire kindled in him, that he was, as it were, filled 
with the Indignation of the Lord, whose Fury ran through him, to cry: 
'Plagues! Plagues! and Vengeance against the Authors of this Abomina- 
tion !' "*' Even the gentler sex felt the fierce frenzy, and a woman rushed past 
the guards one day into the Parliament House, with a pitcher in her hand, 
which she smashed to fragments before the Commons, shrieking : " So shall ye 
be broken in Pieces ! "^°^ 



about him ; Tremble ai tlu IVord of the Lordt took 
hold of this weighty Saying with such an airy Mind, tint 
from thence he took Occasion to call him, and his 
Friends, scornfully Quakers. This new and iinusital 
Denomination was taken up so eagerly, and spread so 
amons the People, that not only the Priests there from 
that Time gave no other name to the Professors of the 
Light, but sounded it so gladly abroad that it soon ran 
overall England . . neighboring Countries and adjacent 
Kingdoms, etc" ilbid, 24. Sec also New England 
Fire Brand Quenclud^ etc. i : 26.] 



*^^Il>id,^Z, 91. 

'MW.-rf, 10:. 

^'^^ I If id, 136. Fox .and other Quakers considered 
Nayler "clouded in his understanding;" — he himself, 
later, became of that opinion — others thought they all 
were so ; and, necessarily, \vi".h the masses of the people, 
Quakerism took the credit of the whole. 

"-Hid, 133- 

'=Vi:V/, 282. 

"'/<!/</, 187. 

"■■IbiJ, 180. 



Some people fancied that these strange fanatics were Franciscan friars, in 
disguise -/^ and, altogether, many of the English people became stirred quite 
to alarm by them. 

As a matter of course tidings of these things in due time crossed the Atlan- 
tic to these remote shores. They lost nothing in crossing. The colonists made 
up their minds that those turners of the world upside down would be coming 
hither also, and that such coming ought to be resisted. Franciscans in dis- 
guise or madmen without disguise, in any event, their presence W'ould be 
unsavory and their influence pestilential — and, if possible, New England must 
be kept clear of them. By the autumn of 1654 some of the tracts of Lodowick 
Muggleton and John Reeves, who had acted somewhat as forerunners of Fox, 
and had boldly claimed to be the "last two witnesses and prophets of Jesus 
Christ, ''■"'^ were found to have been shipped to Boston ; and the General Court 
ordered them to be put to what it thought to be their best light-giving use, after 
the lecture, in the market place, by the executioner.''^ Twenty years had hardly 
yet effaced from the Massachusetts mind the grievous troubles which had been 
connected with Mrs. Anne Hutchinson's teachings and career ; and the burned 
child dreaded the fire. 

I have said that these tidings suffered no diminution in reaching New Eng- 
land. It is to be remembered, by every one who wishes fairly to weigh the con- 
duct of our fathers, that the real question is what kind of people they thought 
the Quakers to be when they began to thrust themselves into the colony ; even 
more than what kind of people these Quakers actually were. And it would be 
easy to show that there had come out of England stories, supposed to be 
authentic, which were calculated to make any community having the ordinary 
instincts of propriety, shrink with loathing from all threatening of Quaker con- 
tact?*'-'^ 



*w Information to that effect was lodged under oath 
with tlie authorities of Bristol, Eng., 25 Jan.-5 Feb. 
1654-5: "that certain Persons of the Franciscan Order in 
Rome, have of Lite come over into England, and under 
the Notion of Quakers, drawn together several Multitudes 
of People in London, etc. [fiiJ, S5. ] 

""Spoken of in Jxev. xi: 3. [See Sewel, 3S6; Pal- 
frcy's/y/j/. A^i;. ii:453.] 

«3J/a„. Ccl. Kec. iv (1) : 204. 

*w Sec Thomas Underliill's Ileli Broke Loose ; or an 
History cf tlie Qjtakers both Old and Ne^i 1660; [>(aj- 
f/OT,but especially 6, 33, 36;] and John \Viggan*Sw4«/r- 
chrisi's strongest Hold Overturned ; or, the F<ntiida~ 
Hon of ill* Religion o/tJu People called Quaker s, Bared 
and Kazedf 1665 ; Baxter's Quaker^s CaiechisrHf etc.. 



1656; John Faldo*s Quakerism no Christianity, etc., 
1675 ; John Brown's Qnakeristn tlte Pathway to Pa- 
ganism, etc., 167S. Lesser known — many of ihcm 
later — authorities are Sch\\-armgeistcr- Brut's Neite, 
Oder Hist. ErzeMung von d. Quakent, denen dtr 
Ranter, etc, etc., 1661 ; Croese's Qttaker~H istoric, von 
deren Ursprting bis an/ jungsthin entstandent 
Trennung, i6g6 ; Fcustking's Gy/iaeceum //a^retico- 
Fiinatictiin, oder Historic it. Beschrcib, d. /alschen 
Proplt4tinnen,Quiickerinnen, et:, 170,1; and QuiUker- 
Grejtel; das ist, Abscheulkhe Irihutn der Quiicker, 
1702 [in the Boston Pub'ic Libmr;-]; A It^aming to 
Souls to beware o/" Quakers and Qu^ikcrisfn, etc., 1677 ; 
A Brie/ Discovery of some 0/ tlte Blaspliemous and 
Seditious Principles and Practices o/tht People called 



[I27] 

In the spring of 1656 the General Court appointed a Fast Day, among other 
things, "to seelce the face of God in behalf of our native countrje in referenc 
to the abounding of errors, especially those of the RaunUrs and Quakers, ctc."""'^ 
Within a month a Barbadoes vessel arrived, bringing two Quaker women. 
Under the alien law, which had been passed in the old Antinomian times,'^'"^ 
these were sent back as soon as possible, and some books which they had 
brought were burned. In four or five weeks (7-17 August) another vessel 
arrived from England with four men and four women of this sect on board, and 
the matter was made more impressive by the fact that some stray idler getting 
on board the ship in the harbor, by the time her anchor was down, had been 
enrolled as a convert ! On their examination before the magistrates, they used 
their tongues freely in " testimony ;" one of the women informing two of the 
elders that she considered them as "hirelings, Baals, and seed of the serpent." 
They were kept in jail until the ship sailed on her return, when they were sent 
home in her.*'- 

The next meeting of the Commissioners of the United Colonies was held at 
Plymouth, commencing on the 4-14 of the following September. The Mas- 
sachusetts authorities, by a communication to them dated 2-12 of that month, 
among other suggestions which seemed to them to require notice, say :''''" 

heere hath arived amongst vs seuerall p.sons proffessing themselues quakers, fitt Instruments to 
propagate the kingdome of Sathan ; for the Securing of ourselucs and our Naighbours from 
such pests wee haue Imprisoned them till they bee dispatched away to the place from whence 
they came, etc. [going on to urge that] some generall rules may bee alsoe comended to each 
General! court to prevent the coming in amongst vs from foraigne places such Notorious here- 
tiques as quakers, Ranters, etc. 

The Commissioners, after due consideration, responded by the recommenda- 
tion following, viz. :'"'' 

Wee doe further propose to the seuer.all generall Courts th.it all quakers, Ranters, and other 
notorious heretiques bee prohibited coming into the vnited Collonies, and if any shall heerafter 
come or arise amongst vs, that they bee forth with cecured, or remoued out of all the Juris- 
dictions. 

The public sentiment of the Bay Colony then fully justifying the step here 
proposed, at the meeting of the General Court on the 14-24 October ne.xt 



Qjtake)^ tic, i6<)o; and Saitif Fevj pf the Quakers 
Matty Horrid Blasphettiies, Heresies, atid their Bloody, 
TreasottabU Prittciples, Destructive to Goverttttteitt, 
etc., 1699, [Tlie last three arc in the Lihrary of the 
American Antiquarian Society, at Worcester. ] 
•^Mius. Col. Rec. iv(i): 275. 



^^/l>id,\: 196; Vlinthrop*s yoiirttal,i: 224. 

»" Palfrey's Hist. N. Eng. ii: 464. 

^^ A cis 0/ the Coittmissiotiers o/tfte United Calotiies, 
ii : 156. 

^^Ibid, 158. Both these citations may be found also 
in Hazard's Hist. Coll. ii : 347, 349. 



[128] 

ensuing, a law was passed, whose terms are worth considering, for the indica- 
tion which they give of the honest convictions then entertained in Massachu- 
setts, as to the character of these persons :*° 

\Yhercas there is a cursed sect of hireticks lately risen vp in the world, wch are comonly 
called Quakers, wJio take vppoii tlicm to be imedialely sent of God, and infallibly asiited by the 
Spirit to speake & ^vTite blasphemouth o\)m\ons, despising gouernment &' the order of God in 
church 6f comonwealth, speaking evill of dignitjes, reproaching and revjling magistrates and min- 
isters, seeking to turne the people from the faith & gaine proseljtes to theire pernicious wajes, 
this Court, taking into serious consideration the p.mises, and to prevent the like mischiefe as by 
tlieire vteanes is wrought in our native land, doth heereby order, etc., etc. 

The provisions of this law were severe. The ship-master who should bring 
them was liable in ;£'ioo, and to carry them back, if he could not prove his 
ignorance of their character. The Quaker was to be whipped, and imprisoned 
until his re-shipment ; which was to be as speedy as possible, and he restrained 
from all chance of making converts during the interval. Any person importing 
Quaker books was liable for them in £'-^ apiece ; and any person defending 
Quaker opinions, was finable — for the first offence £2, for the second £i, ; and, 
if obdurate, was to be banished. The law was intended to be so severe as 
to furnish an absolute preventive against the dreaded immigration. It was 
quite in accord, however, with the best wisdom, and the most humane temper 
of those times ; and, as we shall see hereafter, its working was child's play com- 
pared with treatment which was meted out to the same offenders in England. 
The New Haven plantation passed a similar law in the following spring ;*" and 
even the tolerant Old Colony was moved from its usual mildness to take tem- 
porary measures against the common enemy.*'" 

The great hobby of the Quakers of those days was to " testify ; " which was 
usually accomplished by rude intrusion upon sacred places and services, with 
violent speech. And they seemed almost to suspect their own fidelity if they 
could not succeed by such " testimony " in so e.vasperating somebody as to 
receive harsh treatment in consequence. The similia similibus ciirantur princi- 
ple did not prove to work well in their case, and the sterner the statutes which 
were made against them, the more they were stirred up to test their severity."' 



"Ojl/AlJ. Col. Kec. iv(0: 277- 

'■'^Rec. Col. AViti Hn-jeii, ii: 217. 

""Sec VoUime of l^ws — Kec. Plym. Col. xi : roo. 
The law passed in 1657 was repealed 13 June, 1660. 
Ubid, 101.] 

«*" The Turk's method of dealing with the Quaker 
emissaries was the happiest. Prompted by that super- 



stitious reverence which he was educated to p.iy to luna- 
tics, as persons inspired ; he received these visitors with 
deferential and ceremonious observance, and with a pro- 
digious activity of genuflections and s.tlams bowed them 
out of his country. They could make nothing of it, and 
in that quarter gave up their enterprise in despair." 
[VMre/iHisl. N. Eng. ii: 473(note).] 



[I29] 

Being banished, they had "a religious concern '""'to thrust themselves back 
upon the forbidden ground. Provoked by this persistent pertinacity the Col- 
onies at last, after exhausting all milder statutes in vain,^" on recommendation 
of their Commissioners^'^ — of date 23 Sept.-3 Oct. 1658 — applied to the case 
of the Quakers that provision which since the days of Nicholas Frost (Oct. 1632) 
in Massachusetts,^- and John Dawes in Connecticut,^'^ had been resorted to to 
enforce the law of banishment ; and which eleven years before had been applied 
to the case of Jesuits and other emissaries of Rome f^* namely: that such ban- 
ishment be "upon pajne of death," should the subject of it venture to return 
within the jurisdiction.'^'^ In every preceding case this provision had been 
found effectual, and not a doubt seems to have been entertained that the expe- 
rience of the past would be again repeated, and that, under cover of this most 
emphatic testimony to the point that the New England Colonies did not desire, 
and did not intend to tolerate, upon the premises which with great self-denial 
they had secured, and settled, and which they had every legal and moral ri^rht 
to control, the presence of these wild enthusiasts, they would be able to live 
without molestation from them. The view generally taken was ably stated in a 
treatise prepared at the request of the Court, by John Norton, and designed "to 
manifest the evill of theire [the Quaker] tenets and dainger of theire practises 
as tending to the subvertion of religion, of church-order, & civill government, 
and the necessitje that this gouernment is put vpon (for the preservation of 
religion & theire oune peace & safety) to exclude such persons from amongst 
them, who, after duo meanes of conviction, shall remaine obstinate & pertina- 
tious, etc.'"^'" 

The book was published at Cambridge in 1659, and the tenor of it may be 
inferred from a single sentence:^'' 

The wolf which ventures over the wide sea, out of a ravening desire to prey upon tlic sheep ; 
when landed, discovered and taken, hath no cause to complain, though, for the security of the 
flock, he be penned up with that door opening upon the fold fast shut, but having another door 
purposely left open whereby he may depart at his pleasure, either returning from whence he 
came, or otherwise quitting the place."' 



'^ Eesse's Collect ion 0/ ihe Siiffcrwgs of tlu 
eailed Qiiakers^etc.'\\: iSi. 

"°See Statutes of Oct, 1657 and May, 1658. 
Col. Rec. iv(i:)3oS, 321.] 

"'/fc/j 0/ Cam. 0/ UuU. Col., etc. ii : 212. 

ti2 See p. 16 aute^ and Mazs. Col. Rec. i ; lOO. 

''^Pub. Rec. 0/ Col 0/ Conn, i; 242. 

t-'^^Mnss. Col Rec. ii: 193; iii: 112. 

'''^Ibid,vi(iy. 346. 



I'eo/'lc 



''*' Heart 0/ Nevj Eii^laud Rent, etc. 56. 

"* Francis Howgil replied to this treatise with The 
Heart 0/ Nczu Et;^litttcl Hardctted through M'icked' 
tiess; in a characteristic spirit saying to Norton therein: 
"thou mnst not think that this poor Tract of thine, 
which is full of Deceit and Confusion, Error, DIas]ihcrny 
and Madness; though thou jiub'lsh it by the Appoint- 
ment of the Ccncral Court, that it will cover your Wick- 
edness, or hide you from being discovered to moderate 
People, neither will shelter you in the Day of the Lord 



[i3o] 

For a time all went well under this law. The first six Quakers apprehended 
under it, were Laurence and Cassandra Southwick, Josiah, their son, Samuel 
Shattuck, Nicholas Phelps and Joshua Buffum, all of Salem ;"° and being ban- 
ished they came not again. Then followed others who imagined themselves 
" moved of the Lord " to enter the Massachusetts Colony, and " constrained in 
the Love and Power of the Lord, not to depart, but to stay in the Jurisdiction, 
and to try the bloody Law unto Death. "^-'' William Robinson, Marmaduke 
Stevenson, and Mary Dyer were first tried, convicted, and sentenced, "for re- 
belljon, sedition & presumtuous obtruding themselves vpon vs, not wthstand- 
ing theire being sentenced to banishment onpajneof death, etc.,'"'^' and neither 
party flinching, the two men were hanged ; the woman being persuaded at the 
last moment — "finding nothing from the Lord to the contrary"'-- — to accept 
of the deliverance offered, if she would depart to Rhode Island from whence she 
came. When the worst thus came to the worst, the people scarcely sustained 
the government ; which felt itself called upon to make appeal to its constitu- 
ency, in which — insisting that it desired the Quakers' "life absent rather then 
theire death present" — it recapitulated with succinct force the legal aspects 
of the matter, fully demonstrating the lawfulness of what had been done, and 
making out a strong case in defence of the position that "Christ and his saints 
were led by one spirit, and those people by another ; for rather then they W'ould 
not shew theire contempt of authoritje, and make disturbance amongst his peo- 
ple, they choose to goe contrary to the expresse directions of Jesus Christ, & 
the approoved examples of his saints, although it be to the hazard & perrill of 
their oune Hues ;"'-' yet, withal, conspicuously failing to demonstrate also either 
the wisdom, or the humanity, of their course. 

Mary Dyer could not be easy. Where she spent the winter is not known, 
except that she was not in her proper place with her husband and children, at 
Newport.''^' Could she have felt "a motion of the Lord upon her spirit" to 
attend to His Word as it is revealed in such passages of the Scripture, as that 
which commands believers to study to be quiet and to do their own business ;°^ 
and especially that which ordains that women be discreet, chaste, keepers at 
home, good, obedient to their own husbands j^-" in place of mistaking the crude 



. . . neither all this Covcrins which thou hast made will 
not vindicate your wicked Practices, nor shelter you from 
the Storms, and Thunders, and Plajjues, and Terror, 
and Wrath, which is to be I'.oured oiu, etc." [//Vr.tj, 
321.3=3 1 

^1° Dishop*s A'nu Engiand ytidged^ etc. ( t66i), 79 ; 
[ed. 1703, 100.] 

^^Ibidjtj^. [ed. 1703, 114.] See also Besse's Ct?//*"^- 
ticH, etc. ii ; 198-220, and Seivet, 219-227, 263-269. 



K' Mass. Col. Rec. iv (i): 3S3. 

^~ Mary Dyer's Letter to the Court. Besse*s CctUc* 
tion^etc. ii : 205. 

^^ Mass. Col. Rec. iv(i): 3S6, 390. 

5-**' I have not seen her above this half-year." Letter 
of William Dyer to Gov. Endccott, 27 May, 1660; cited 
by Palfrey. [Hist. N. Eng. ii: 479.] 

^^ I Thcss. iv: 11. 

K»Tit ii: 5. 



[131] 

fancies of her own heated imagination for the voice from heaven, she might have 
filled out a useful life, and slept in peace by the side of her kindred. But when 
the May flowers bloomed again, her restless spirit led her stealthily by forest 
by-paths back to Boston, and to a fate which with as just, as somber, a pathos 
her husband characterized as one: "for I know not what end, or to what pur- 
pose."^-" If her own interior intent had been, however, to make an unpopular 
enactment still more unpopular by illustrating the terrors of its severity, there 
can be no doubt that she succeeded in the same. For a time various expedi- 
ents were resorted to, to get round the terrible law without more blood.'™ 

But there was to be another sufferer. William Leddra, who had been ban- 
ished, " was under such necessity of Conscience that he could not forbear return- 
ing thither."^^ He was tried, and, as there was no conceivable reason under 
the law as it was, why he should not be, he was found guilty. He was offered 
life and freedom if he would go away ; but his answer was : " to make you a 
promise I cannot."^ The issue was too square to be evaded, and this fourth 
poor enthusiast was hanged. But it was the last of these deplorable executions. 
Winlock Christison was at the same time awaiting his fate in Boston jail, but 
his courage failed, and he wrote to the Court his promise : " that, if I may have 
my libarty, I have freedome to depart this Jurisdiction ; and I know not yt ever 
I shall com into it any more."^'' So great was, by this time, the division of 
feeling in the government itself, and so decided the popular disapproval of their 
course, that, in any event, his life would have been spared, and his submission 
was useful only to break the fall of the magistrates. The General Court which 
was in session ; "being desirous to try all meanes wtli as much lenity as may 
consist with our safety, to prevent the intrusions of the Quakers, etc," hastened 
to make large alteration in the law, with the purpose of substituting milder pen- 
alties for that of death ; only nominally retaining that, if, after three trials, the 
court should "judge not meete to release them.""' But no enforcement of the 
severities of the new statute ever took place. This mildness was the sober 
second thought of the Government, and its cheerful concession to the will of the 



*»-■ Willi,im Dyer's Letter, as above. 

^'^Mass. Col. Rec. iv(i): 419, 433. 

'» Sewcl's History, etc. 263. 

^^ Ibiti, 266, See also conccrnins; his case, Desse's 
CoUcction, etc. ii: 213-^20; Eisliop's Nc-m England 
Judged, etc. 154) ii: 11. [ctl. 1703,164,313, 326. 

^^ Mass. Archives, x: 273. Hutchinson recognizes 
this paper. [//«/. Mast. {ed. 1795) i: 1S6.] The 
Quaker historians were evidently unaware that the 
archives of the enemy contained this proof positive, in 
his own hand-writing, that Christison showed the white 



feather; for they unite in representing him as "resting 
in sweet peace and quietness." in view of his approach- 
ing doom — as continuing " in Faith and Patience, ready 
to .abide the good Pleasure of God concerning him, and 
to suffer Death for a good Conscience, as his Brethren 
had done before him," with more which is even more 
violently inconsistent with tlie actual facts. His release 
they attribute to "some Intelligence from London." 
[Bishop's AVty ^«.C'''*"''^7^«''^^^) ii: 35 (cd. 1703,340); 
Sewel's History, etc. 271 ; Besse's CoU. etc. ii: 223.] 
K" Afass. Col. Rec. iv (2) : 2, 3. 



[132] 

people ; and not its sullen submission to the mandamus of Charles the Second 
— as it has been the fashion to allege.^" The document so called was not 
given at Whitehall until 9-19 September, 1661, and was not served upon the 
Governor at Boston until more than six weeks after that date^ — or more 
than six months subsequent to the enactment of the new law, and the clear 
adoption of the more humane policy. 

If it were a trial to some of the best men of the Colony to be driven to this 
letting-down, in which they did not — with their light — believe ;^ it must have 
been, on the other hand, both a chagrin and a solicitude to the prominent advo- 
cates of the new policy, that the Quakers seemed for some time after to be more 
than ever filled with the spirit of disorder. Every person who fancied that it 
might be a fine thing to be a disciple of the terrible "man in leathern 
breeches," ^^"^ seems, all at once, to have put on airs and "testified." These 
new lights were particularly hard on the ministers of religion. They always 
called them *' Priests,'* generally with one or more unfriendly or scurrilous 
adjectives. "Dark Priests," "Wicked Priests," "Blockish Priests," "Blasphe- 
mous Priests," " Oppressive Priests," " Priest-tories," " Plireling Priests," 
" Notorious Thieves and Robbers," " Savage Baites," " Develish Priests " — are 
a few of the elegant and charitable references which one finds thickly scattered 
through the pages of Bishop, Fox, Howgil and Burnyeat, and their compeers, 
and applied to those humble and self-denying men who had brought the old 
truths of God dear to the church in every age, into this wilderness, and were 
patiently trying to prepare here the way of the Lord. They thrust themselves 
into private houses, and "warned " their tenants.^^' They wrote vituperative 
letters to people."^ They had "a burden of the Lord" to post up wrathful, 



^^ "procured ,i Mandatmis from that Monarch, by 
which an effectual Stop was put to the Proceedings in 
New England of putting Men to Death for Religion, 
by which their blind Zeal and Fury would otherwise 
probably have destroyed many innocent People." 
\Besse., i : xxxi!.] 

^^ Scwel*s History^ etc. 273. Bishop's AVrw Eug^. 
yudgcd^eic. ii : 3S [cd. 1703, 344] Pal/rey^W'. 520. 

^^•IJishopsays: "Then said your Governour [Ende- 
cott] after they [the Court] had voted once [in Christi- 
son's case] and some of them would not consent, * I 
could find in my heart ' (such a thirst Iiad he after the 
bleed of the Innocent) 'to go home,' being in a great 
rage; and so misbehaved himself on tlic Seat of Judge- 
ment, that he furiously flung something on the Table, 
etc." \_lbid^ ii: 34 (ed. 1703,339).] 

'^Gca Fox*s Jourtudt 55. " It was a dreadful tiling 



to them [the Priests] when it was told them 'The man 
in leathern breeches [Geo. Fox himself] is come.' " 

'^^ Two Quaker women did this to Roger Williams. 
"They bid me," he says, " Repent and Hearken to the 
Light within me. [As if Roger had ever been noticeably 
lacking in that grace!] I prayd them to sit down, that 
we might quietly reason together ; they would not ; then 
standing, I askl ihem the ground of their such Travel 
and Employment ; they alledged loeh Prophcsie ; I a.j- 
swcred, that was fulfilled, that was not ever\-dayes 
work ; besides their business was not Prophetical but 
Apostolical, &c. They regarded not my Answers nor 
Admonitions, but powrcd the Curses and Judgements of 
God against me, and hurried away." \G£0. Fox Digg'dy 
etc. Afieudix, etc. 27. j 

^^'•Scc one of John Sraitli's to Gov. Endecott,t5MA<yS 
11; 124; (ed. 1703) 445J; another of Mary Trask and 



[i33] 

scolding, and impudent documents in the market-places.'^ And, not satisfied 
with anything short of actual disturbance of the public peace, in many, even of 
the remote country towns, these people on the Lord's Da)-, and in time of relig- 
ious worship, invaded the "steeple houses" — few of which, to be sure, then 
afforded steeples — and, with immovable hats on their infatuated heads, broke 
up the service by clamorously announcing that such exercises were an abomi- 
nation to the Lord.^" Some of them devoted themselves to travelling from town 
to town, "being moved " to "visit the Seed of God in those parts. "^" George 
Wilson rushed through the streets of Boston shouting: "The Lord is coming 
with fire and sword !""^ Thomas Newhouse " gave a sign " in the Boston meet- 
ing-house, carrying two glass bottles in his hands; which, doubtless in imita- 
tation of the London woman in the Parliament House,^^ he dashed together, by 
way of emphasizing his bawl : " So shall ye be broken in Pieces ! "*" Edward 
Wharton was "pressed in spirit" to repair to Dover and proclaim "Wo, Ven- 
geance and the Indignation of the Lord" upon the Court in session there.'"'^ 
John Liddal wandered as far as Flatbush, with his half insane cry: "Turn; 
turn ; from your evil wayes."^^'' 

In this thing the women quite outdid the men. Elizabeth Hooton prome- 
naded the streets of Cambridge, and subsequently those of Boston, shrieking : 
" Repentance ! Repentance ! A day of Howling, and Sad Lamentation is com- 
ing upon you all from the Lord! "^' Mary Tompkins, on the First Day of the 
week at Oyster River, broke up the service of God's house by "declaring the 
Truth [that is to say, freeing her mind] to the People ;" the scene ending in 
deplorable confusion.**^ Hannah Wright, a mere girl of less than fifteen sum- 
mers, toiled "in the motion of the Lord" from Oyster Bay, L. I., through all 
the long hard journey to Boston, that she might pipe in the ears of the Court : 
"a Warning in the Name of the Lord."^'-* Catherine Chatham exhibited herself 
in the streets of Boston "under a great Exercise and Concern of Mind" clad in 
sackcloth, " as a sign of the Indignation of the Lord against that oppressing 
and tyrannical Spirit which bore Rule in the Magistracy of that Place.""" 



Margaret Smith to the same [fiid, ii; 130, (ed. 1703) 
453] ; and one of George Keith to the Ministers of Bos- 
ton. [Prcs. &f' Ind. Vis. Churches in iV. Eug. 
and Eisctt/herCf Brought to the Test, etc. so-t. ] 

^"Sec Geo. Keith's "Call and Warning from the 
Lord, to the People of Boston, and New EngUind, to Re- 
pent, etc.," wliichwas "set up in llie most piib'.ick place 
in the Town of Boston, tlie 21'* of the 4'** Month [21 
June-i July] 16SS." \.lbid, 195.] 

""Hutchinson's Hist. Mass. (cd. 1795) i: 187; 
Bishop, ii: 50, 144; (ed. 1703) 3S4> 47'- 



^^ Bisho/ifii: 87; (ed. 1703)400. Besse's Cottectiany 
etc. ii; 227. 
^- Biihofy ii: 4O; (ed. 1703) 351. 
"'Sec p. 125 ante. 
^^ Bishof'^ ii: 113; (ed. 1703)431. 
"^/I'id, ii : jo3 ; (cd. 1703) 425. 
^^/i>id,i\: 107 ; (ed. 1703)424. 
"^ /6/d, ii : <)?, 103 ; (ed. 1703) 414, 41S, A, 191. 
"'/iid, ii : 76 ; (cd. 1703) 3S6. 
"O/iid, ii: 136; (ed. 1703) 461. 
^^/i/idtii: t04;(ed. 1703)420; Besse^ ii: 231. 



[134] 

Margaret Brewster improved upon this. She went, in 1677, in time of public 
service into "Thatcher's meeting" [the Old South] in Boston on Sunday, "in 
Sackcloth, with Ashes upon her Head, and barefoot, and her Face blacked," 
and, with three other women and a man, made " a horrible Disturbance," so 
affrighting some delicate females who were present as to endanger their serious 
illness ; her call to do so being that " she was constrained in a prophetick Man- 
ner " to warn the people that she "had a Foresight given her of that grievous 
Calamity called the Black-Pox.""' 

This was bad enough. But there was a lower depth. About five years after 
the last Quaker execution, and the adoption of a humaner polic}-, Mrs. Lydia 
VVardell found herself " under a Duty and Concern " of marching stark naked 
up and down the aisles of the church in Newbury, in time of public Sabbath 
service, in consideration of their miserable condition — as "a sign." The 
Quaker historian, with sweet simplicity, describes the result, as follows : " This 
she performed, but they, instead of religiously reflecting on their own Condi- 
tion, w^hich she came in that Manner to represent to them, fell into a Rage, and 
presently laid Hands on her, and hurried her away to the Court at Ipswich, 
which was held at a Tavern in that Town.""- Not long after, Deborah Wilson, 
"being a j'oung woman of a very modest and retired Life, and of sober Conver- 
sation," imagined herself inspired of the Lord to perambulate the streets of 
Salem in utter nakedness, as symbolizing the "naked truth" to a wicked and 
corrupt generation."' Having, " in part, performed some part thereof as afore- 
said, she was soon laid hands on," and dealt with by the magistrates for her 
indecent exposure."* 

It is a remarkable fact that not a word of censure — not even so much as 
any hint of concession that these crack-brained zealots might possibly have been 
mistaken in their apprehensions of duty — escapes the principal Quaker writers 
in their reference to these sickening exhibitions ; while it seems difficult for them 
to find language strong enough to express their horror of the "cruelty" which, 
in the interest of public decency, sought to repress such e.\cesses."^ Indeed, 



^^ Ibiti ifiti. 1703) 491 ; A, 103 : Scsse, ii: 260. 

^'^Jbiiiy ii : 69 ; (cd. 1703) 376; Besse-t ii: 235. 

*-^ Tlic careful reader will be struck at several points 
with the remarkable resemblance between these Quaker 
outrages upon decency and proprietj-, and those of the 
Anabaptists of the century before. Tliese wretched fe- 
males copied the frenzy of the followers of the tailor of 
Amsterdam [see p. \i\tiuie\\ whi'.c the shouts of many, 
in the churches and the streets, almost hterally repro- 
duced the I'at! vae! vm ! divitui Vitidictal divina 
ViitdUta ! divitta I'indi^ta t of those miserable dupes. 

"•^ii/w/.ii: 74;(ed. 1703) 383 ; £«jf, ii : 236. 



^^ It will be noticed that I have cited Quakerwitnesscs 
altogether, in proof of the above shameful occurrences. 
Bishop calls the authorities who dealt with Lydia War- 
dcll " unreasonable bruit beasts, whose name shall rot, 
and their memory peribh'' (ii: 69; (ed. 1703)377]; and 
says the treatment of Deborah Wilson was '*asav.age 
cruelty seldom heard of, as it was most barbarous injus- 
tice," clone by "Wicked Rulers." [/3/i/, ii; 74(ed. 1703) 
3S3]. Eesse says: "this cruel sentence was publickly 
executed on a Woman of exemplary Virtue and unspotted 
Chastity, X'^r lur Obedience to what she believed tfu 
Spirit 0/ the Lord fuxd enjoined htr to do^ [ii: 235.] 



[135] 

when, in the great debate at Newport in August 1672, between Roger Williams 
and the Quakers, he made a strong and telling point against them of " their 
stripping starl-c nalced their Men, and Women, and Maidens, and passing along 
in publick places and Streets unto the Assemblyes of Men and Youths, and so 
were beheld and gazed upon by them ! And this under a pretence of being 
stirred up by God as a Service or Worship unlo God, as an act of Christian 
Religion proceeding from the immediate moving of the most holy Spirit of God, 
most glorious in purity, and purity and holiness it self;" they undertook first to 
deny that any of their women had ever thus transgressed, and when confuted 
as to this by Mr. Williams's citing out of their own Bishop the two cases above 
referred to, they finally settled down upon the conclusion that: "if the Lord 
God so commanded his Sons and Daughters, it must be obeyed l"'^ 

Perhaps the most revolting occurrence connected with this passage in New 
England history, is one related by Increase Mather, He says:^''" 

I think myself bound to acquaint the world, tliat not many moneths ago, [his book was pub- 
lished in 16S4] a man, passing under the name of Jonathan Dunen [Dunham] (alias Singleterry) 
a singing Quaker, drew away the wife of one of Marshfield to follow him ; also one Mary Ross, 
falling into their company, was quickly possessed with the devil, playing such frentick and dia- 
bolical tricks as the like hath seldom been known or heard of ; for she made herself naked, 
burning all her clothes, and, with infinite blasphemy, said she was Christ, and gave names to 
her Apostles, calling Dunen by the name of Peter, another by the name of Thomas ; declaring 
that she would be dead for three dayes, and then rise again ; and, accordingly, seemed to die. 
And while she was pretendedly dead, her Apostle Dunen gave out that they should see glorious 
things after her resurrection ; but that which she then did was, she commanded Dunen to sacri- 
fice a dog. The man and the two women Quakers danced naked together, having nothing but 
their shirts on. The constable brought them before the magistrates in Plimouth, where Ross 
uttered such prodigious blasphemy as is not fit to be mentioned ; Dunen fell down like a dead 
man upon the floor, and so lay for about an hour, and then came to himself. The magistrates 
demanding the reason of his strange actings, his answer was, that Mary Ross bid him, and he 
had no power to resist.''^ 

It is to be conceded that the better sort of the new sect by this time had be- 
gun to repudiate excesses like these last of Dunham and his crew ;"" but it was 
inevitable that the sober portion of the population of New England should find 



'^Gco. Fox Digg'il,etc. 3S-.10. 

^^ Ah Essay /or the Recordhi^ 0/ Illustrious Prov- 
ideticcs, etc. [Russell Smith's reprint, 1S56] 244. 

*^ Plymouth Records endorse the general fidelity of 
the above narration. The hearing before the magistrates 
was in July 16S3. The dog belonged to John Irish, of 
Little Compton, R. I., and was slaughtered and thrown 
upon 'a fierin the said house, against the declared will 
of llie said Irish." Jonatbau Dunen [Dunham] was 



"cent.anced to be publickly whipt att the post," and or- 
dered out of the jurisdiction, and was further condemned 
to be " soc serued as oft as liec shall vnessesar\*Iy rctume 
into it to desemlnate his corupt principles." \Plym. 
Col. Rec. vi: 113.] 

s-'^Sce especially George Keith's Tlte Presbytertttn 
and I miependent Visibtt Churches in Ne'.u England, 
and else^aihere. Brought to the Tesi^etc, tl'ith a Call 
and iVarning, etc., to Repent^ etc. (1691), 215. 



[136] 

it difficult to draw the line between "Old" and "New Quakers," and should be 
slow to see in any who passed under that name, the qualities which create and 
adorn reputable and estimable citizenship. 

Three thoughts suggest themselves after this glance at such facts. 

I. It is easier to find fault with our fathers in this, as in some other matters, 
than to put ourselves in their place, and declare, with confidence, how we should 
have improved upon their methods. To have thrown open the plantation to 
free Quaker ingress, with England in the condition in which it then was, would 
have been to have invited the influx of an unmanageable, overwhelming and 
disastrous host, and must have been tantamount to the surrender at once of all 
those peculiar ideas and cherished purposes, the attempt to attain and develop 
which for themselves, and their offspring, had inspired, sustained and sweetened 
their difficult enterprise. To keep it shut against such immigrants was what 
they undertook, by processes which would have availed with reasonable men, 
and with any unreasonable men short of the e,\ceptional zealots with whom they 
were compelled to deal. They surely had the right to put Quakers outside 
their jurisdiction, and to do their best to keep them there.^ They had found 
the sentence of banishment " on pajne of death " if violated, effectual in all pre- 
vious cases ; and the government had no reason to suppose it would not prove 
effectual in this case, until it found itself confronting William Robinson and 
Marmaduke Stevenson with halters round their necks. Doubtless it should 
then have relented — since they would not. But that had not been the New 
England way ; nor was it any where the temper of those times. Barrow and 
Greenwood and Penry had been hanged in England, avowing their loyalty to 
the Queen with their last breath, purely and simply for their religious faith j'"' 
while these men added to the most serious offence in doctrine, most flat defiance 
of the State. Doubtless in that supreme moment when Mary Dyer was spared, 
"vpon an inconsiderable intercession,'"^ it would have been the wisest policy 
to have spared the others also ; but if in this enlightened day there be any son 
of those Puritans who in the most exigent crises of his own affairs, has never 
failed to adopt that course which his own afterthought, not merely, but the after- 
thought of seven generations, could endorse as the best possible — let him cast 
the first stone at the memory of the fathers for their offence.^ 



^™Sec the discussion of the ri^ht of the Colony to 
control its membership, with reference to the cnse of 
Roger Willi.nms, p. ij a/Ue. See further the suggestions 
on pp. So, Si ai;le. 

** Waddington's Congregational History^ ii: 79, 91. 

'^Masi. Col. Krc. iv (i): 3S6. 

^^ Dr. Palfrey sums up his clear and candid account 



of the matter thus: "No householder has a more un- 
qualified tide to declare who shall have the shelter of his 
roof, than had the Governor and Company of Massa- 
chusetts Cay to decide who should be sojourners or vis- 
itors within their precincts. Their danger w*as real, 
though the experiment proved it to be far less than was 
at first supposed. The provocations which were offered 



[i37] 

2. As it was, the Quakers suffered lightly in New England as compared with 
their experience in tlie mother-countr)-. Joseph Eesse, in 1753, published in 
two folio volumes an elaborate account, apparently founded upon most patient 
and extended research, of the sufferings which " the People called Quakers " 
had been called to undergo "for the testimony of a good conscience."^' His 
statistics, and his detailed narratives, cover all the countries into which Quakers 
had wandered. 

He has gathered together one himdrcd and seventy {\l6) instances of what he 
conceives to have been various hard usage of the Quakers in New England ; 
four having been hanged, twenty-two banished on pain of death, and twenty-five 
banished on pain of lesser penalties.^*^ 

At the same time he gives — to a greater or less extent — the particulars of 
thirteen thousand two hundred and fifty-eight (13,258) instances of the contempo- 
raneous persecution of Quakers in England, Scotland and Ireland.^" Two hun- 
dred and nineticn (219), were sentenced to banishment in one lot from Bristol.^' 
Three hundred and sixty (360) suffered death — not by hanging, but by prison 
hardships, and in other ways bitterly known to all who for any reason in those 
days came under the ban of the State.^*^ Many were carried off by prison fevers,'*^ 
and the like distempers. Some almost literally rotted in jail, in a confinement 
extending to eight and ten years, before death brought relief"^™ 

Hundreds of those who did not absolutely perish in close confinement, came 
near to death in consequence of the shocking privations which they were com- 
pelled to endure.^^ Some who were in extreme old age, and even totally blind, 
were mercilessly imprisoned, simply for being found in attendance at a Quaker 
meeting.'"'- Some •were cast into the midst of convicted felons, who robbed and 
abused them.'^^" Seven were, on one occasion, in Merionethshire, kept confined 
ten weeks in an uncleansed hog-sty, with the normal occupants all that time 
noisily seeking repossession, and the frequent rain drenching them through the 
shabby roof.'"^ 



were exceedingly offensive. It is hard to say what 
should have been done with disturbers so unmanageable. 
But that one thing should not have been dune till they 
had become more mischievous, is plain enough. They 
should not have been put to death. Sooner than put 
them to death, it were devoutly to be wished that the 
annoyed dwellers in Massachusetts had opened their 
hospitable drawing-rooms to naked women, and suffered " 
their ministers to ascend the pulpits by steps paved with 
fragments of glass bottles." [History New England^ 
11:485.] 

'^ A Collection of tlu Sufferings o/ the People 



called Quakers, etc., from 1650 to 16S9. 
vols. fol. (pp. ]v, 767, 648). 

^•^Ibid, i ; XXX ; ii : 624-626. 

^^ IbidyW: 539-624. 

"^^ Ibid, i : 51 ; ii : 637. 

'^Ibid,x\: 634-636. 

^''^ Ibid, i: 533, 690; \\: loS. 

''*° Ibid, i : 609, 642, 644. 

»:' Ibid, i : 682, 745. 

'•''Ibid,\: 6S6. 

'■3 Ibid, i : 690, 693. 

"*Ibid,i: 746. 



London, a 



[138] 

One cannot wonder that Francis Howgil should have spoken to the English 
nation a "Warning" even sharper than those which he dispensed to New Eng- 
land; saying of the Quakers :^'^ 

They have been as for a Prej', and for a Spoil unto all, and unreasonable Men have plowed 
long I'urrows upon their Backs, and they have had no Helper in the Earth ; but, on the con- 
trary, every one halh lent his Hand to bow them down, and tread upon them as Ashes under 
the Soles of their Feet, and yet no Evil to lay to their Charge. . . Therefore O Nation, con- 
sider and take this one Warning more, that thou proceed not further to thy Hurt, and thou 
repent when it is too late. 

I repeat the expression of my conviction that it is not a reasonable demand 
from any man, that the first settlers of New England be condemned as lacking 
in all that was fairly to be expected of them, if they did not at once out-meas- 
ure the mother-country in the scope of their charity, or the breadth and large- 
ness of their public spirit. And I am quite willing that their treatment of both 
Baptists and Quakers be compared, in all the details which history has pre- 
served, with that received by those persons in England, and in London itself; 
confident that the more extended the investigation, the more triumphant will 
the vindication of the Puritans be made. 

3. Nor is it possible to forget that there is a constant exposure to erroneous 
conclusions on such a subject as this, by means of the almost inevitable color- 
ing which is thrown back upon the past from the associations of the present. 
The Baptists of our day are quiet and well-behaved persons, comparing favora- 
bly in spiritual attainments and usefulness, in general culture, and in special 
cases of scholastic eminence, with any other denomination of Christians known 
to the nineteenth century. While the broad-brimmed, and drab-clad Quaker 
of our time has such marked preeminence in all the peaceful and thrifty virtues, 
as to make it almost impossible for us to think that any person bearing his dis- 
tinguishing name, could ever have been other than a benediction among his 
fellows. 

But the simple, inexorable, fact of history remains, that the Quaker of the sev- 
enteenth century — and it is a very curious study to mark in how many points 
the Baptists of that day resembled the Quakers ''° (and it might be one still 
more curious to philosophize upon it) — was essentially a coarse, blustering, 
• conceited, disagreeable, impudent fanatic ; whose religion gained subjective 



^•" The Dawttittffs 0/ the Cosfiel-Day, etc. (1676) 342. 
Howgil had published, in 1659, TIu Popish Inguisi' 
tion Xewly Erected in AVty England., etc., and also 
The Heart of Ne'Oi England Hardned., etc.y in answer 
to John Norton's " Heart of New England Rent," etc 



^*Scc this subject briefly, but very suggestively, han- 
dled by Prof. Diman in his Introduction to the edition 
published in 1872, by the Narraganselt Club, of Wil- 
liams's Geo. Fox Digg'd out c/ his Surrouies, etc. 
[FuS. Nar. Club, v: viii, ix.] 



[i39] 

comfort in exact proportion to the objective comfort of which it was able to 
deprive others ; and which broke out into its choicest exhibitions in acts which 
were not only at that time in the nature of a public scandal and nuisance, but 
which even in the brightest light of this nineteenth century, and in those lands 
where freedom of conscience has gained its most illustrious triumphs, would 
subject those who should be guilty of them to the immediate and stringent 
attention of the Police Court. The disturbance of public Sabbath worship, and 
the indecent exposure of the person — whether conscience be pleaded for them, 
or not — are punished, and rightly punished, as crimes by every civilized 
government. 

Those men, whom Roger Williams knew as " Pragmatical and Insulting 
Souls," " Bundles of Ignorance and Boisterousness," with " a Face of Brass, 
and a Tongue set on fire from the Hell of Lyes and Fury;" and to argue 
against whom — at the .age, it would seem, of more than three-score and ten — 
he rowed "with his old bones " from Providence to Newport'^"' up to midnight 
before the appointed morning of discussion ; were as unlike the sleek, benig- 
nant Friends, whom all people now take pleasure in knowing, as the wild Texas 
steer, maddened by the fever-torture of thirst and the goading torment of the 
jolt and clatter of a cattle-train ; broken loose and tearing terribly through 
crowded city streets — tossing children, trampling women, and making dan- 
gerous confusion thrice confounded everywhere, until calmed by some police- 
man's rifle — is unlike the meek-eyed and patient ox which leans obedient to 
the yoke, as with steadfast step he dr.aws the straight dark furrow behind him, 
along which, by and by, the harvest of autumn is sweetly to smile. 

This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter. Our fathers, if they were 
better in many things than Englishmen of their day who did not help to colon- 
ize New England ; made no pretence to be such — surely made none to excel 
their generation in their theory of liberty of conscience. They came here to 
secure that freedom for themselves, which they would much have preferred to 
enjoy at home, but could not there attain. They never dreamed that they were 
settling the Bay in order to afford harbor for all sorts of persons who could not 
live comfortably elsewhere. They were settling it for themselves ; for those 
who thought essentially as they did ; and for their children after them. Having 
bought and paid for it ; and exiled themselves and variously suffered for it ; 
and knowing that before the bar of God and the tribunals of man, they had 
indefeasible right to it; they wanted that territory to themselves, for their own 
use. The world was all before others where to choose. There was land enough 

f*" G^a. Fox Dig^d, etc. 24, 63, etc. ; see also Pub. | Xar. C/ui, v : xxix-xxxviii. 



[i4o] 

lying waste in the outreaching wilderness, for a hundred Baptist and Quaker 
colonies. And surely it was not an unnatural, nor, under the circumstances, 
an inhospitable, desire, that these alien elements should go elsewhere. The 
Puritans did what they could to make them go. They failed. Probably they 
submitted to the inevitable with as good a grace as any of their children — or any 
of this generation who are the children of wiser, or weaker, men — could have 
taught them to do. They did not at once outgrow their past, or their present ; 
but they never undertook, nor claimed, to do so. And if Massachusetts as 
Colony, and Commonwealth, failed to abolish all lingering union between 
Church and State until within the memory of the middle-aged men of to-day ; 
there is this to be said about it, that it is by no means sure that any middle- 
aged man of to-day will live long enough to see the mother-country — to say 
nothing of the rest of the world — stand, on this question, where the Bay State 
has been standing for more than the last forty years. 

They held no abstract theory about liberty of conscience. Few men of 
their generation really did that in the modern sense ; being quite contented 
with a doctrine on that subject which would assure their own personal liberty 
of thought and action. °''' And they never "persecuted" either Baptists or 
Quakers, for differing with them. This point was made clear by an eminent 
' New England jurist, when he said -.^'^ 

A man persecutes nobody, by defending his own from encroachment. The lands within their 
chartered limits were theirs. The government w.is theirs. The faith and modes of worship 
were theirs. Under their grant from the Council at Plymouth, and their Charter from the 
Crown, they secured to themselves, as we have seen, substantially a fee-simple in their lands, 
which they could protect against all encroachments. They endeavored to secure to themselves, 
also, a theologic fee-simple so to speak, or al least a life-estate, and they were exceedingly tena- 
cious of this, and more sensitive to trespasses upon it than to trespasses upon property, in the 
proportion that the concerns of religion held a higher place in their estimation than mere tem- 
poral affairs. There was little temptation to commit trespasses upon their temporal fee. But 
there were other zealots besides themselves, who were quite desirous of becoming tenants in 
common, at least, if not disseizors, of their ecclesiastical fee. The attempt was promptly met, 
first by warning off ; and when that failed, by an ecclesiastical action of trespass, resulting in a 
fine ; and when that failed, by a process of ejectment, called a sentence of banishment. 

The New England men while they lived, only asked fair and just treatment. 



"^This is the way the Romanists pleaded for Liberty 
of Conscience in £ng!.ind : " Since tliere must be Here- 
sies, and our judgments are as different as our Faces ; 
since brcedii^g and education doth so much sway, and 
hath so great influence on many Religions; and that 
Sectaries arc grown numerous ; we ought to h.avc a Lat- 
itude of Charity for those that dissent, if tltey be iiot 



Impostors or turbulent Incendiaries.^' [Tkg Advocate 
of Conscience Liberty^ or an Apology /or Toleration 
Rightly Stated, etc. (1673.) 52.] 

*•* Hon. Joel Parker, Lowell Lectures by Jifembers 
Mass, Hist, Spc. 41S. Theextract on the next page [141] 
is from Rev. Dr. Ray Palmer's Poem entitled " Home." 
[Poetical Works, ijS.] 



[i4i] 

They ought to have it now that they are dead. And they ought to have it from 
their own. The man who to-day rejoices in this rich heritage of their bequeath- 
ment, owes it to common honesty to form upon tlie facts of the case an intelli- 
gent and candid opinion, as to the real character of the first settlers of Massa- 
chusetts. It is a much less difficult task to abuse them on hearsay, than it is 
to imitate their virtues. As sings one of their sons : 

Not faultless were they, else were they not men; 

Yet less their own the faults than of their time ; 

Of times long past, when many an error reigned 

As yet unchallenged, blinding all alike 

To truths since seen as in the midday blaze. 

Beyond their fellows, keenly had they pierced 

Error's thick-veiling mists, and Truth discerned 

In her diviner forms ; aside had flung 

Falsehoods long honored, maxims cherished long, 

That mighty ills had wrought ; the good, the right. 

In their great hearts they worshiped ; these they sought, 

As misers search for gold, with deathless love ; 

Clung to them found, as with the grasp of fate ! 

What if perchance from ardor so intense 

Of quenchless earnestness, their zeal o'erglowed 

At times, and they — their vision not yet clear — 

There erred where all the world had erred till then ? 

Ah ! ye who meanly seek to tear away 

The honors thickly clustered round their brows, 

Yours, yours the lack of heavenly charity 

Ye charge on them ; yours with far less defence 1 

On. you returned at last shall rest the shame ; 

And as the sun from the clear mirror wipes 

The envious vapor that its luster dimmed, 

Just Time their names to honor shall restore. 




CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS. 



[Dates not exactly tdeiitlfied are marked with a dashj] 



Day 
of wk. 


Month. 
Old Style. 


Month. 
New Style. 


Year. 


EVENT. 


Page. 






21 Apr. 
13 Nov. 
5 July 
II Jan. 
19 July 
17 July 


15991 

1603 J 

1611 

1620 

162 1 

1623-4 

1624 

1625 

162^^7 

1627 

162S-9 

1629 

u. 

1629-30 
1630 

(1 

l( 
I630-I 

1631 

« 

» 
(( 
(( 

1632 

u 






Th. 
F. 
M. 
W. 

r. 

Th. 


II Apr. 

3 Nov. 

25 June 
I Jan. 
9 July 
7 July 

— Jan. 

4 Mar. 
30 April 

Summer. 

26 Aug. 

10 Feb. 

23 Aug. 

7 Sept. 
zS SepL 
19 Oct. 

11 Nov. 

I Dec. 

5 Feb. 
I M.ir. 


Edward Wi^htman burned as an Anabaptist in England . . 
King James's Patent to Council for New England . . . . 

R. W. elected Scholar at Sutton's Hospital 

Patent sold by Ld. Sheffield to Cushman, Winslow, etc. . . 

R. W. obtained an exhibition at Charter House 

R. \V. matriculated at Pembroke Coll. Cambridge .... 


123 
9 

2 
9 

2 
2 




R. W. probably beneficed in Lincolnshire 

New grant and confirmation of Charter by Charles I. . , . 
Act of Company authorizing Endecott to fomi a gov', at 




T. 
Th. 


14 Mar. 
10 May 


9 






14 
12 


w. 

T. 


5 Sept 

20 Feb. 

2 Sept 

17 Sept 

8 Oct 

29 Oct. 

21 Nov. 

1 1 Dec. 

15 Feb. 
II Mar. 

22 Apr. 

13 May 

28 May 
24 June 

16 Sept. 
7 Oct 


"Agreement" signed by Winthrop and others 

Gen. Court of Company in London approves Endecott's 


M. 


First meeting of Company on N. E. soil, at Charlestown. 


■3 

14 
'4 

23 


T. 




T. 
T. 


Order to T. Gray to remove beyond the jurisdiction . . . . 
Anot/ur Roger Williams (of Dorchester) applies to be free- 


Th. 


Two gentlemen refused permission to settle without "testi- 


'7 
3 
3 

■ 4 


vv. 


R. \V. and wife sail in the Lyon from Bristol for Boston 


M. 


Seven common folks, with Sir Chris. Gardiner, "banished*' 
R. W. invited to be Teacher to the Boston Church, and 




12 April 

3 May 

iSMay 
14 June 
6 Sept. 
27 Sept. 

3 Oct. 
— Oct. 


4 

4^ 
14 
2S 
14 
11 
") 

5 
■ 6 

6 

6 

7 

21 


T. 


Letter from Winthrop and others to Endecott at Salem 
about R. W 


T. 

W. 
T. 
T. 
T. 


T. Walford and wife ordered beyond the jurisdiction . . . 
The ot/icr Roger Williams takes the Freeman's oath . . . 


Lynn ordered beyond the jurisdiction 


R. W. goes from Salem to Plymouth 

Nich. Frost ordered away on pain of death, should he return 
Visit of Winlhrop and Wilson to Plymouth over Sabb.ith . 
R. W. studlefi Algonkin, and fraternizes with the Indians . 


M. 


13 Oct 









-Jan. 


1632-3 


Sir Christopher Gardiner, and others, petition the king 
against the Colony 



[i44] 



Day 
of wk. 


Month. 
Old Style. 


Month. 
New Style. 


Year. 


EVENT. 


Page. 




Summer. 

3 Sept. 

— Nov. 
27 Dec. 

3 Jan. 

24 Jan. 

— Feb. 

21 Feb. 
7 Mar. 

25 Apr. 

-July 

2 -Vug. 

3 Sept. 
17 Sept. 
iS Sept. 

5 Nov. 
27 Nov. 

— Dec. 
19 Feb. 

3 Mar. 

1 Apr. 
30 Apr. 
14 M.iy 

16 June 

S July 




1633 

"633 
1633-4 

■ 634 
t( 

1634-5 
■635 

II 

11 
II 

It 
<i 
II 

II 


R. W. removes to Salem, assisting Mr. Skehon, "but not in 
office " 






.3 Sept. 

6 Jan. 
13 J.in. 
3 Feb. 

3 Mar. 
17 Mar. 
8 May 


7 
16 

25 

27 
27 

39 


T. 

F. 

Th. 

Th. 


Capt Stone ordered off under penalty of death 

R. W. and Mr. Skelton object to ministers' meetings . . . 

Court takes action about R. W.'s" treatise" 

Winthrop wTites to Endecott about R. W 

Court met about R. W.'s "treatise," and he promises sub- 




Order in Council detaining ships for N. E. and demanding 


Th. 
Th. 
M. 


Cradock replies to Council that the Charter is gone to Mass. 

Troubles about women's veils at Boston, etc 

Commission granted to regulate Plantations, etc 

Magistrates decline to surrender Charter till Court meets . 


>3 
31 

23 


S. 


12 Aug. 

14 Aug. 

13 Sept 

27 Sept. 

28 Sept. 

15 Nov. 
7 Dec 


36 
22 
22 
31 

22 

3' 

32 
36 

=3 
3a 
33 
33 
33 
36 

23 

37 
38 
38 


M. 

w. 
w. 

Th. 
W. 
Th 


Jeffery shows Gov. Winthrop T. Morton's exultant letter . 
Court meets, keepsnuiet about Charter, and begins fortifying 
Fast D.iy (sjiecial) R. W. preaches at Salem— faithfully . . 
Griffin arrives with copy of Commission of 2S Apr. -3 May 
Complaint that the flag has been mutilated at Salem . . . 




Cudworth writes that R. W. is at Salem, but not pastor . . 


\V. 


I Mar. 

13 Mar. 
10 .Apr. 
10 May 
24 May 

26 June 

iS July 


M. 
W. 
Th. 
Th. 

T. 


Court meets and orders continued nnlitar>' preparations . . 
Resident's Oath enacted — which R. W. preaches against . 

Court sends for R. W. in regard to that attack 

Court modifies existing form of Freeman's Oath 

R. W. ordained by Salem Church, its pastor 

Ship arrives with news that the old N, E. Council is dis- 


W. 


R. W. cited to next Court to answer for his teaching against 




Salem people petition Court for some Marblehead land . . 
The Court lays the petition on the table for the time . . . 
R. W. sends letters of complaint to the other churches . . . 

Boston Church replies to Salem Church letter 

R. \V. and Elder Sharpe reply to this Boston letter .... 












W. 


22 July 


I Aug. 


■4J 




15 Aug. 

16 Aug. 

2 Sept. 

5 Oct. 
8 Oct. 


25 Aug. 

26 Aug. 

12 Sept. 


43 

44 

45 


». 


R. W. sick. Sends letter to his church withdrawing com- 


W. 


Court meets. Sends Salem Deputies home to ask questions 
Writ of Qui} tvarratiio granted in England against Colony 


T 


16 Oct. 
iSOct. 

19 Oct. 


49 
49 
■.*>t 
.16 
58 


Th. 


Gen. Court meets, and, among other things, tries R. W. . , 






Court orders John Smyth beyond the jurisdiction 

R \V "hanifihcd*' 


F. 


9OCL 




F. 


20 Nov. 


30 Nov. 


R. W.'s six weeks of leave expire. Court permits him to stay 
till spring, if he will not teach his views 

Judgment given on the Qua zvarranto in London 

R. W. recovers, breaks his pledge, and begins to preach 
again 


60 
23 

61 



[145] 



Day 
of wk. 


Month. 
Old Style. 


Month. 
New Style. 


Year. 


EVENT. 


Page. 




-Jan. 




1635-6 

1636 
■ 637 
1638 

(( 

1639 

1640 
1641 
1643 

■643-4 
1644 

164s 
1645-6 

1646 

164S 
1649 

1650 

n 
.651 

(( 

41 

it 

1654 

1654-5 


Court meet and take action in R. W.'s case 

They send James Penn, their Marshal, to cJte R. W. . . . 
A committee from Salem insist that he is still too sick . . . 

R. W. starts through the woods for So7uains 

The Court direct Underhill to put R. \V. on board ship . . 
He goes to Salem for that purpose, but finds the bird flown. 

R. W. writes to Mr. Winthrop asking advice 

R. W. buys Prudence of Canonicus for Gov. Winthrop . . 


61 
61 
62 

62 
62 
62 






















— Aug. 

lo Nov. 

Early 

21 May 

22 May 
I July 

S Mar. 
-July 

14 Mar. 
-July 
13 Nov. 
Autumn 
iS Feb. 

Spring 

4 Nov. 
Autumn 




F. 


20 Nov. 

in 

31 May 

I June 

II July 

iS Mar. 

24 Mar. 
23 Nov. 

25 Feb. 

14 Nov. 


9= 
114 
93 
92 

64 
92 

■■5 
119 

103 

"5 
116 
116 

119 

116 


M. 




T. 

M. 

Th. 


R. W. writes Gov. Winthrop about Verln 

Hugh Peter notifies the Dorchester Church that Salem 

Church has excommunicated R. W 

R. W. writes Gov- Winthrop about Samuel Gorton .... 

Anabaptists first mentioned in New England 

Wm. Witter at Swampscot calls Infant Baptism hard names 


W. 

w. 


T. Painter refuses to have his child baptized at Hingham • 

General Court pass a law against the Anabaptists 

Divers persons request an alteration in this law 

Witter is presented at Salem Court for \'ioIent speech on 




Seventy-eight persons petition for alteration in Anabaptist 


w. 


General Court adopt declaration about Anabaptists, etc. . . 

Ed. Starbuck commits some Anabaptistical offence .... 

Obadiah Hohnes et al. secede from Rehoboth Church and 
form an Anabaptist Church 

Complaint made to Plymouth Court of Holmes, et ai. . , . 

Mass. General Court write letter to Plymouth Court about 
Holmes c^ a/., remonstrating against its mild way of 
treating them 

Plymouth Court nets mildly towards them, notwithstanding, 

Holmes goes to Newport and joins Clarke's Anabaptist 


116 
ii3 








Summer 
iS Oct. 

29 Oct. 

Summer 

30 Oct. 

16 July 

19 July 

20 July 

21 July 

22 July 

31 July 

5 Sept 
25 Nov. 

iS Oct. 

-Jan. 


iiS 
itS 

118 
118 


Th. 
M. 


25 Oct. 

8 Nov. 

9 Nov. 

26 July 

29 July 

30 July 

31 July 

I Aug. 
10 Aug. 
15 Sept 

5 Dec. 


W. 

w. 

s. 
»■ 

M. 
T 


Coddinston obtains in England New Charter for R. I. . . 

Geo. Fox first imprisoned in England as a Quaker,and that 
new Sect begins to make a noise in the world .... 

Clarke and party leave Newport to obtain a little persecu- 
tion in Massachusetts 


■ 19 
1=4 

I20 


Clarke preaches there, and the party is arrested 

They get back clandestinely to Witter's house and finish 
service, having rebaptized Witter 


I20 

121 


Th 






F. 
T. 


Holmes whipped — having insisted upon it 

Witter presented at Salem Court for having been rebaptized 
As many as 60 Quaker Missionaries at work in Europe . . 
First Quaker books arrive in Mass., and are made light of 

in the market-place, by Court-order 

R. W. explains to his fellow citizens of Providence what he 

means by liberty of conscience 


121 

120 


W. 


28 Oct. 


126 

<)6 



[146] 



Day 
of wk. 



Month. 
Old Style. 



Month. 
New Stj'le. 



Year. 



EVENT. 



W. 

F. 



Th. 
T. 

Th. 
T. 

T. 
S. 
F. 
Th. 

T. 

T. 
Th. 
F. 
T. 



Th. 

F. 

M. 

T. 



T. 

Th. 

W. 



F. 
9. 
S. 



F. 
Th. 



14 May 
II July 



7 Aug. 
2 Sept 

4 Sept. 
14 Oct. 



19 M.-iy 
4 July 
6 June 

23 Sept. 

19 Oct. 

23 Nov. 

27 Oct. 
I June 
4 Dec 



14 Mar. 

7 June 
9 Sept. 

— Nov. 
26 Nov. 

8 Nov. 

I Mar. 

2S May 
30 July 



14 .-Vpr. 
7 May 
14 Oct 



9 Aug. 
8 July 
■ 5 Jan. 



•Ma 



-July 



24 May 

21 July 



17 Aug. 
12 Sept. 

14 Sept. 
24 Oct. 

29 May 
J4 July 
16 June 
3 Oct. 

29 Oct. 

3 Dec 
6 Nov. 
II June 
14 Dec. 



24 Mar. 
17 June 
19 Sept. 



1656 



23 Oct. 
21 June 



6 Dec 
18 Nov. 

II Mar. 

7 June 
9 Aug. 



24 Apr. 
17 May 
24 Oct. 



19 Aug. 
18 July 
25 Jan. 



2 Nov. 
I July 



1657 
u 

1658 



1659 
1660 



1660-1 
i66i 



1663 
1663-4 

166s 

u 

u 

« 
i663 



1670 
1672 

1680-1 

1681-2 

16S3 

1685 
16S8 



Fast Day ordered in Mass. with special reference to Quak- 
ers, and other cahimities 

First detachment of Quakers arrive in Boston from Earba- 
does, and the magistrates — under law of 1637 — order 
them sent back 

Second lot come 

Gen. Court addressesCommissioneisof the United Colonies 
on the subject 

Commissioners adxase Courts to pass laws against Quakers 

Mass. Gen. Court enacts such a law > . 

Thomas Gould of Charlestown presented for Anabaptism . 

R. W. charges W, Harris with high treason 

That charge heard and acted upon 

Charlestown Church labors with Thomas Gould 

Quaker law amended so that return after banishment should 
be "on pajne of death" 

Court banish first six Quakers under new law, and direct 
John Norton to write a book against the Sect .... 

The Quaker Ed. Burrough attacks Cromwell's funeral . . 

Robinson and Stevenson hanged 

Mary Dyer hanged 

Parliament orders the disinterment of Cromwell, Bradshaw 
and Ireton, and that their remains be hanged, and 
their heads stuck up on Westminster Hall 

William Leddra hanged 

Winlock Christison begs off 

So-called ^WanJamns'^ issued by Charles II. at Whitehall 

Ser\'ed on the Massachusetts authorities 

A Baptist preacher hanged at Tyburn 

Thos. Gould starts a private Anabaptist meeting in his 
house at Charlestown 

R. W. active under a Charter in R. I., identical with that 
which he had denounced in Mass. 

Gould's meeting grows into what is now ist Bapt. Ch., Boston 

Gould excommunicated by Charlestown Church 

Deborah Wilson promenades Salem in extreme undress . . 

Lydia Wardell marches naked into Newbury meeeting . . 

Gitat debate with Baptists at Boston commences 

Gould r/ a/, banished and imprisoned 

Gould ei al. petition for release, being retinforccd by the pe- 
tition of 66 others 

Gould set at liberty 

R. W's. great debate with the Quakers begins at Ne«port 

Margaret Brewster disturbs the Old South meeting .... 

R. W. to Town Clerk of Providence, urges the duty of every 
man's upholding the civil authority 

Colony reports to the king that the Anabaptists are no longer 
diseriminatcd against in its laws 

Dunham tried at Plymouth for sacrificing a dog, in his 
Quaker orgies at Little Compton 

EliKlbcth Gaunt, an .'Vnabaptist, burned at Tyburn, Eng. . 

Gee Keith posts his fierce Quaker ' ' warning " in the Mar- 
ket-place at Boston . • 



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